>But the web works because browsers are tolerant.
This is more of an artifact of needing to be compatibile with other browsers and more of an arbitrary decision where once one browser starts allowing all sorts of input than everyone else may start needing to if content starts relying on it.
>But the world is better for it.
It makes compatibility between different browsers more complicated due to adding a ton of edge cases that all need to be handled the same way as opposed to following a standardized way of writing pages.
>The user experience of XHTML was rubbish. The disrespect shown to anyone for deviating from the One True Path made it an unwelcoming and unfriendly place.
The UX could be improved along with developer tools making it harder to mess up and easy to spot mistakes. For example many internet forums have similar requirements of needing to match formatting tags and those have work successfully despite being strict. I think the real issue was that XHTML was introduced too late. Trying to fix things in a decentralized ecosystem is an extremely big uphill battle. If you don't fix things at the very start things can grow out of one's control.
>The beauty of the web as a platform is that it isn't a monoculture.
There is also beauty in that there is a standard that everyone can follow to ensure that pages written can work the same in all browsers.
>I cannot fathom how someone can look at the beautiful diversity of the web and then declare that only pure-blooded people should live in a particular city.
The way people interact with each other in the real world is very different than the way browsers render pages. I do not think such a comparison makes any sense to make.
>How do you acknowledge that the father of the computer was a homosexual, brutally bullied by the state into suicide, and then fund groups that want to deny gay people fundamental human rights?
Just because someone was in the right place at the right time does not mean that they are of perfect moral character. It's similar to the quote to never meet your heros. The people you may look up to in regards to some achievement may not be the best of character and keeping a distance from them may be the best else your opinion of them may be tarnished.
>When you throw slurs and denigrate people's pronouns, your ignorance and hatred does a disservice to history and drives away the next generation of talent.
I disagree that this happens. At best it discourages a subset of the next generation, but it is not a subset I would like to work with. These kinds of people could also drive away other potential talent too. Simply increasing the number as opposed to trying to build a positive, healthy, culture and growing it I don't think is the best idea.
>This isn't an academic argument over big-endian or little-endian.
It could be about these 2 choices. For example x86 processors were able to be extremely successful despite not being tolerant between big and little endian. By picking a single one and running with it, it's been able to help unify computing on little endian.