Re: HTML 5 differences from HTML 4: inline style attribute a necessary evil

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:22:46 +0100, Dana Lee Ling <dleeling@comfsm.fm>  
wrote:
> I have always prided myself on conforming to standards, and try to write  
> HTML 4.01 strict and now HTML 5 technology preview conforming pages. If  
> the inline style attribute is removed, then that will be an impossible  
> goal for me. Pave the cow paths. Eelmine says 61% of web pages use  
> inline style. That's a pretty hefty cow path to remove from the standard.

This is an open issue. I expect style="" to be added back in due course.  
However, the differences document should reflect the actual differences,  
not the expected differences :-)


> While HTML 5 says inline style is being removed as presentational, what  
> is <b> and <i> if not presentational? As a science teacher I support the  
> bringing back of <i> for scientific names, though I presently use <em>.

Using <em> for that seems abuse of the <em> element. Although maybe in  
reality the two are now pretty much the same. Then again, the current  
draft tries to define them in such a way that both are semantic and have a  
distinct meaning.


> Sometimes presentation cannot be fully separated for human beings.  The  
> alternative is dozens of classes like .floatright {float:right;},  
> ..textsmall {text-size:smaller;}

I think the question you should ask is that if something has a distinct  
presentation, doesn't it have a distinct meaning as well? Also, what's the  
best way to capture that meaning in markup?


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Tuesday, 13 November 2007 15:37:55 UTC