Save Space Using Just Every Other P?

Question

I found that the end result is the same if you code the "normal" way like this:

<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>
<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>
<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>
<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>

compared to coding like this, in which only every other paragraph text is coded with p:

This is a paragraph text section.
<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>
This is a paragraph text section.
<p>
This is a paragraph text section.
</p>

This would save space, but are there any compelling reasons to not do it this way?

Answer 1

As pointed out by @StuartLC:

css applicable to p wouldn't be applied to the skipped paragraphs

While your code risks this behavior, you could still minify it by taking into account that the closing p tag is optional in HTML5. Google's Style Guide even recommends omitting optional tags.

So you could write the code like this, without losing any p CSS properties:

<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.

Snippet

body {font: 13px verdana;}
p {color: red;}

<strong>Alternating `p` elements:</strong>
<p>This is a paragraph text section.</p>
This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.</p>
This is a paragraph text section.
<hr>
<strong>With no closing `p` tags:</strong>
<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.
<p>This is a paragraph text section.