Re: Predefined Class Names Solution

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

 > [...]

 > The disadvantage is that it doesn't directly pave the cowpath made by
 > existing content, such as the wide use of class=copyright.

This last part I do not understand (all that precedes
seems fine to me), perhaps because "paving a cowpath"
is not an idiom with which I am familiar.  But if
(as I suspect) it means "reinforcing existing
behaviour", then I do not understand the logic.  At
the moment people use class="copyright" for (I believe)
at most two reasons : (1) to provide a hook
onto which to hang a CSS rule, and possibly (2) to
provide a hook through which to allow access to
"copyright" elements via the DOM.  If you (we?)
are now proposing to add a number of pre-defined
classes, all commencing with an underscore, of which
one is "_copyright", how does this conflict with
existing usage.  All extant documents will continue
to behave as their authors intended, and new documents
can use 'class="copyright"' or 'class="_copyright"'
depending as their authors want their own semantics
or those prescribed by the specification.

If, on the other hand, you want to "reward" those
who have already used 'class="copyright"' with the
exact semantics intended by the WHATWG, whilst
penalising those who have used it with any
other semantics, then this seems to me a highly
dubious aim, and not one with which I have any
sympathy.

Philip Taylor

Received on Monday, 7 May 2007 13:21:25 UTC