Re: Cleaning House

On Sun, May 06, 2007 at 05:06:19AM -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> My own personal stance would be less extreme than this, merely that  
> new versions of the standard should be informed by how previous  
> versions were actually used, and adapt some extent. Markup languages  

  Indeed. Which is why - again - the I- and B-elements should not
  be given any semantic interpretation /based on how they are actually
  used in the wild/.

  I don't know how I can make this point any more clear.




> >  is an actual header just because the author thought it was
> >  a good idea at the time.
> 
> This probably would be non-trivial to deduce, yes, but I also think  
> this is a pretty rare way to say "header" compared to <div  
> class="header"> or <h1>.

  It doesn't matter. It /is/ a real-world example of why the
  B-element /cannot/ be redefined as being equal to STRONG;
  the rarity of misuse notwithstanding.

  A quick grep through 22,221 HTML documents currently
  in archive show 4,894 uses of the B-element. A sample
  of the pages reveal that some use it instead of
  STRONG, some instead of H*, and some documents use it
  for /both/, on the same page.




> It seems like part of your objection may be based on unfamiliarity  
> with the contents of the spec.

  I frankly don't understand on why you insist on this particular
  form of argumentation - it is vaguely unpleasant.

  Could it be that I am familiar with the specification and
  *disagree with it*?

  The theory that "disagreement is only due to ignorance" doesn't
  hold water.

-- 
 - Tina Holmboe