- From: scott lewis <sfl@scotfl.ca>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:45:44 -0600
- To: Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
On 25 Jun 2007, at 0951, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:
> At 16:09 +0200 UTC, on 2007-06-25, Simon Pieters wrote:
>
>> We can define the semantics for elements.
>
> Right. But let's be honest, when you need to read someone else's
> HTML, seeing
> <a> doesn't exactly immediately make you realise that it means <span>.
That's beside the point as <a> does not mean the same thing as
<span>. <a> is intended to mean: "this would be a link, but there is
nothing to point it at". The fact that it is treated similarly to
<span> for styling purposes is a coincidence.
The current draft of the spec provides an example of where this would
be useful. The reference links currently have gibberish in their
@href because the section they point to does not yet exist. Where a
link placeholder element available, the UA would not lie to the user
(implying a non-existent resource exists) and the HTML source would
still indicate that the references are intended to be links.
> HTML is not for UA consumption only.
True. But I don't see how defining <a> as a "link placeholder" would
harm a human's comprehension of the document.
> [...]
>
>>>>
>>>> and the stylesheet rules will be simpler.
>>>
>>> How?
>>
>> menu a { display:block; border:solid; }
>> menu a:link { background:lime; }
>
> menu * { display:block; border:solid; }
> menu a:link { background:lime; }
It seems to me that 'menu a' would be a clearer statement of the
author's intent than 'menu *', at least to a human reader of the CSS.
Scott.
Received on Monday, 25 June 2007 16:45:56 UTC