How is it better that every single image on a page has alt="image" or alt="asdfasdf", instead of a missing alt-tag?
If the alt tag was recommended - but optional - then a missing alt-tag tells you the developer didn't think about it (and who knows if the image is significant), while a present but empty alt-tag indicates the image really is decorative/insignificant.
As long as the alt-tag is required, a valid site will contain alt="" all over the place, and you can't know whether that's because the site developer was lazy (but was using validating tools) or if the site developer decided to flag those images insignificant.
Am I feeding a troll here?
(edit: It's like the difference between an SQL NULL and an empty string.)
If the alt tag was recommended - but optional - then a missing alt-tag tells you the developer didn't think about it (and who knows if the image is significant), while a present but empty alt-tag indicates the image really is decorative/insignificant.
As long as the alt-tag is required, a valid site will contain alt="" all over the place, and you can't know whether that's because the site developer was lazy (but was using validating tools) or if the site developer decided to flag those images insignificant.
Am I feeding a troll here?
(edit: It's like the difference between an SQL NULL and an empty string.)