Re: Don't deprecate tt

Ian Hickson wrote:
 
> <b> and <i> aren't presentational as defined in HTML5

That is a semantical trick to keep these elements anyway...

Actually <tt> has the same issues as <i> and <b>, in some
environments (*1) the "better" elements are not supported,
but a simple way to get the effect of <code>, <var>, <kbd>,
or <sample> is required.

And where XHTML snippets are created on the fly it is just
easier to type <tt> instead of <sample>, like it is easier
to type <b> or ''' instead of <strong>.

It could make sense to deprecate <strong> and <sample> by
stating that they are legacy aliases of <b> and <tt>.  

...pseudo-semantics for <tt> := '''t'''he real '''t'''hing.

> legacy text-only UAs have long supported the 
> non-presentational elements even without style sheets.

Lynx was hard pressed to find enough (curses) colour pairs
for this zoo, eight combinations of <b> + <i> + <tt> alone.
For a simple black and white printer it is also difficult.
 
> For the sake of consistency, non-presentational markup
> is preferred througout.

Kill <u> and <font> and <center> etc. - that is good enough
for now, but keep what is needed for minimally working Web
pages including simple "HTML input forms" without CSS.

 Frank
-- 
*1: I'm aware of a Wiki supporting only <tt> "as is" without
    <html><code> ... </code></html> or similar workarounds,
    and apparently Google Page Creator also prefers <tt>, it
    even supports <font> for mono-spaced text... <shudder />

Received on Thursday, 8 May 2008 11:47:38 UTC