HTML::anchor() will allow use URI instead of relative path (if I will pass 'user/welcome' as $url while my actual url is site.com/some/controller/some/action - the link will be site.com/some/controller/some/action/user/welcome instead of site.com/user/welcome).
Second one is good practice not to use <?= cause not all users allow short tags in php.ini (me for example).