Re: List elements (was: Tree Presented Lists )

Daniel Hiester, at 22:19 on Thu, 19 Jul 2001, wrote:

>     Why is it that we don't simply have an element that means 'list.'
>     Why was it so important to have the markup parser distinguish the
>     difference between an ordered and unordered list?

Semantically they are different as others have pointed out, but I wonder,
instead of <ol>, <ul>, <dl> tags, why wasn't there simply one <list> tag
with a type attribute, e.g.

 <ol> = <list type='ordered'>
 <ul> = <list type='unordered'>
 <dl> = <list type='definition'>
 <dir> = <list type='directory'>
 <menu> = <list type='menu'>

This would make it easier to add new list types, and even permit combining
them in ways that you currently can't to capture more semantics, e.g.

 <list type='ordered definition'>

Perhaps <ol>, <ul>, <dl> were preferred due to brevity? ("unix shell
command" philosophy? but then <blockquote> could have been <bq> etc.)

Maybe someone with more "history" could refer us to the relevant archived
discussion.

Tantek