I may be breaking rules of etiquette when answering a question in this thread —as most of the answers thus far have been great —but here's how I approach this argument:
While I agree that a 'p' is element which is used to hold text and a 'br' tag is used to break text, in many occasions one may want to manipulate a 'block' of text that have actual line spaces between them;
Ex:
[my block of text]
Hello World!
--------this is a blank line------
You are so full of life!
[/my block of text]
Now many would argue that you can just place two 'p' elements in a 'div' and then manipulate that 'div', however I feel this is more time consuming (aka I'm lazy), and thus I stick with a double 'br' method —leaving me to manipulate just that one 'p.'
The issue with my unorthodox method is that if there is a specific styling applied to line-height, then there will definitely be a noticeable difference between the line-space created by a double 'br' vs. a 'p'.
I guess in when deciding which technique to follow, consider:
- code readability
- best practices
- time
- effects of shortcuts on the rest of your code
