Re: HTML5's Q element

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Sep 2009, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>    
>>> If you want quote marks in the source, use quote marks in the source,
>>> and don't use<q>.
>>>
>>> If you want quote marks added automatically, use<q>.
>>>        
>> This makes little sense. What you're saying is<q>  has no semantic
>> purpose anymore, it's there for presentation (see your further down).
>>      
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "semantic purpose". In what sense is all of
> HTML not just "there for presentation"?
>
> The whole point of HTML is to be a media-independent, platform-
> independent, stylable documenta and application language. Presentation (on
> multiple media, devices, etc) is the most important use case.
>
>    
Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly, I'm just a web designer and 
nobody fancy. I believed many if not most elements such as <q>, were 
there to describe the content. I see now this isn't the case with <q>, 
but it's only really like that because it's broken and nobody wants to 
fix it.
>>> It would be stupid of us to try to change this now given that all four
>>> major browsers ship with a<q>  that inserts quote marks. This was
>>> discussed in depth last year, and the spec was changed (from not
>>> inserting quotes to inserting quotes) after it was concluded that
>>> swimming against the browser vendors here was futile.
>>>        
>>
>> Then hand the spec over to them.
>>      
>
> In what sense have we not handed the spec over to them? Browser vendors,
> as the most high-profile implementors of the spec, have full control over
> what ends up being implemented. I'm not going to make the spec say
> somethin they won't do; that would just turn the spec into an especially
> dry form of science fiction.
>
>    
I understand that they have final say over what goes in their browsers, 
but I can't say I like them having final say over the HTML5 spec itself.

>    
>>> At this point, the<q>  element's purpose is to enable CSS-based
>>> quotation mark injection. If you don't want that, then don't use<q>.
>>>        
>> So at this point how do you mark up an inline quote?
>>      
>
> One of the following:
>
>     <p>Ryan asked "So at this point how do you mark up an inline
>     quote?"</p>
>
>     <p>Ryan asked<q>So at this point how do you mark up an inline
>     quote?</q></p>
>
>    
In that case why not have <p> auto inert a period then we could have the 
following:

Ryan doesn't like what he's hearing.

<p>Ryan doesn't like what he's hearing</p>


Ryan

-- 
Web Designer


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