Order Force in HTML?

Published on February 19, 2025, filed under Development (RSS feed for all categories).

In English, adjectives need to follow a specific order. This requirement is known as “order force” (I couldn’t confirm this term, but the Guardian is using it), and the order, gullibly following a popular tweet, is opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, and purpose. The force is strong: Use any other order, and the statement will sound weird or wrong.

What does order force have to do with HTML?

Going out on a limb, it feels a lot like we have a hidden order in HTML, too—not one of adjectives, but of attributes:

<img src alt>
<link rel href>
<a href class>
<!-- Just kidding on this one, but it’s a thing somewhere: -->
<div class name id src aria-disabled></div>

Any other order may also feel wrong—just like a sentence that uses an incorrect order of adjectives. (To stay with the tweet, <img alt src> may be our “green great dragons.”)

Sure, now, there is tooling—and yet that tooling doesn’t seem essential. In terms of popularity, it pales in comparison to other formatting-related tooling, as for CSS and JavaScript.

The fact that this tooling doesn’t seem as crucial, could be seen as a wink—I see as a wink—that, yes, there is something like order force, in HTML.

What do you think?

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About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)