Pop quiz. What would you expect these three bits of HTML to render? <!-- no new lines after textarea -->
<textarea>Foo</textarea>
<!-- one new line after textarea -->
<textarea>
Foo</textarea>
<!-- two new lines after textarea -->
<textarea>
Foo</textarea>
The fact that I’m even writing about this might make you suspicious of your initial gut answer. Mine would have been that the first would render a text area with “Foo” on the first line, the second with it on the second line, and the third with it on the third line.
In fact, here’s what it renders using Firefox 3.0.3....