Re: No IMG in FIG

Ping wrote:
>For the sake of simplicity, consistency, and usefulness, i further
>agree that <FIG> should have the same content model as <P>.

No, the content model of <P> is too restrictive to be used as the content
model of <FIG>. The respective content models are more useful as they are,
and I personally don't see any problem with simplicity or consistency either.

Don't take this personally, Ping, but it seems to me that you have been
making a large number of poorly thought out proposals lately. You seem to
have a less than perfect understanding of the mission of HTML or else you
just aren't taking the time to really consider the consequences of some of
what you propose.

<soapbox>
The same could be said for the recent LIST proposal. I am adamantly opposed to
any proposal that deprecates or eliminates the current list markup elements
in favor of some monolithic list element. The current elements accurately
reflect genuinely distinct semantic elements. The typical rendering of these
elements is a reflection of their nature, not an arbitrary choice on the part
of browser authors to force a presentation style on users.

To move to a single list element that uses presentational controls to decide
whether or not to number list items would be a step backward for HTML. OTOH,
it is valid to propose style sheet attributes to control some aspects of UL or
OL presentation, such as the numbering style of OL or the bullet style of a
third level UL.

If someone has additional ways in which they want to be able to control list
presentation, then they should be considering first whether this even belongs
in HTML rather than in a style sheet syntax. If what they desire to do is a
reflection of the basic semantics of an abstract document element, then it
might belong in HTML. If it is purely a matter of personal taste regarding how
something should look, then it should probably be in a style sheet. There are
of course some grey areas, such as alignment attributes. From a purist's point
of view, alignment would be relegated to style sheets. In practice, however,
it makes sense to have alignment attributes on various tags because they are
so useful AND because alignment is largely a device-independent concept, if
one does not consider audio or Braille browsers.
</soapbox>

Michael Johnson
Relay Technology, Inc.

Received on Wednesday, 2 August 1995 14:57:22 UTC