title: Does my HTML5 doctype have to be on the VERY first line?
body: <p>I've always wondered whether <strong>whitespace</strong> before a DOCTYPE matters, but I can't seem to find any definitive information on the web. People say not to do it, but I can't see what effect it's likely to have, or even if the spec says it must be like that. I can't figure out if it triggers compatibility mode in IE or anything annoying like that.</p>
  
  <p>The reason is, in my (crappy asp.net) code, I would much prefer to write:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;%@ Page language="c#" Codepage="65001" AutoEventWireup="true" %&gt;
  &lt;%@ OutputCache Location="None" VaryByParam="none" %&gt;
  &lt;!doctype html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>than:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;%@ Page language="c#" Codepage="65001" AutoEventWireup="true" %&gt;&lt;%@ OutputCache Location="None" VaryByParam="none" %&gt;&lt;!doctype html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Because the first is neater. But the result of the top one is a few blank lines in your rendered html.</p>
  
  <p>Not a huge issue. I've just always wondered if it matters :)</p>