Re: HTML5's Q element

Art,

I don't think we have it backward at all, quotes absolutely have
semantic value, not to mention the huge degree of individual and
cultural variation related to them.  As a 20+ year software engineer,
I can tell you I don't even want to come anywhere near writing code
around that quagmire.

But I *do* think Ian's point that this has been specified for over 10
years is the absolute last word (see my most recent note on this).  I
don't see respecifying it now, that would be asinine.

-- T.J.

2009/9/4 Arthur Clifford <art@artspad.net>:
> Ryan and TJ,
>
>
>
> I think you have things backward.
>
>
>
> In HTML tags are what identify the structure/content/semantics of a
> document. Quotation marks (“) have no semantic value at all. The q tag on
> the other hand identifies a section of text as being a quote. Since q tags
> identify something as a quote, as an object within the document, it makes
> more sense to affiliate the symbols to surround the quoted text during
> display with the objects themselves; meaning it makes more sense to have the
> q tag dictate quote marks. As a programmer I will tell you that if I wanted
> to identify quoted material I’d much rather parse a well-formed html
> document for a q and /q  tag than “ marks. Besides “ is not a quote mark in
> printing, there are open and closed quote marks.
>
>
>
> I understand the frustration regarding the argument that because the browser
> vendors do it that’s the way it is going to be. I also understand Ian’s
> perspective, but I would say the browser vendors went the way they did
> because it makes more sense from a development perspective and ultimately a
> user experience to do things that way. The syntax of any programming
> language first and foremost is designed to make parsing it for use by the
> software into a data structure. If you think of html as informing an object
> model, then your opinion about quotes and q-tags becomes more and more
> invalid. The current implementation of q is far more flexible for the
> greatest number of outputs and use-cases.
>
>
>
> Ian missed a method of styling quotes the way you want:
>
>
>
> <p>blah blah blah, “<span style=”RyanQuotes”>some really awesome
> quote</span>”</p>
>
>
>
> Art C
>
> Arthur Clifford
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: public-html-comments-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-html-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Roberts
> Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 3:11 PM
> To: Ian Hickson
> Cc: public-html-comments@w3.org
>
> Subject: Re: HTML5's Q element
>
>
>
> Ian Hickson wrote:
>
> On Fri, 4 Sep 2009, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>
>
>
> If you want quote marks in the source, use quote marks in the source,
>
> and don't use<q>.
>
>
>
> If you want quote marks added automatically, use<q>.
>
>
>
> This makes little sense. What you're saying is <q> has no semantic
>
> purpose anymore, it's there for presentation (see your further down).
>
>
>
>
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "semantic purpose". In what sense is all of
>
> HTML not just "there for presentation"?
>
>
>
> The whole point of HTML is to be a media-independent, platform-
>
> independent, stylable documenta and application language. Presentation (on
>
> multiple media, devices, etc) is the most important use case.
>
>
>
>
>
> Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly, I'm just a web designer and nobody
> fancy. I believed many if not most elements such as <q>, were there to
> describe the content. I see now this isn't the case with <q>, but it's only
> really like that because it's broken and nobody wants to fix it.
>
> It would be stupid of us to try to change this now given that all four
>
> major browsers ship with a<q> that inserts quote marks. This was
>
> discussed in depth last year, and the spec was changed (from not
>
> inserting quotes to inserting quotes) after it was concluded that
>
> swimming against the browser vendors here was futile.
>
>
>
>
>
> Then hand the spec over to them.
>
>
>
>
>
> In what sense have we not handed the spec over to them? Browser vendors,
>
> as the most high-profile implementors of the spec, have full control over
>
> what ends up being implemented. I'm not going to make the spec say
>
> somethin they won't do; that would just turn the spec into an especially
>
> dry form of science fiction.
>
>
>
>
>
> I understand that they have final say over what goes in their browsers, but
> I can't say I like them having final say over the HTML5 spec itself.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At this point, the<q> element's purpose is to enable CSS-based
>
> quotation mark injection. If you don't want that, then don't use<q>.
>
>
>
> So at this point how do you mark up an inline quote?
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the following:
>
>
>
>    <p>Ryan asked "So at this point how do you mark up an inline
>
>    quote?"</p>
>
>
>
>    <p>Ryan asked <q>So at this point how do you mark up an inline
>
>    quote?</q></p>
>
>
>
>
>
> In that case why not have <p> auto inert a period then we could have the
> following:
>
> Ryan doesn't like what he's hearing.
>
> <p>Ryan doesn't like what he's hearing</p>
>
>
>
> Ryan
>
> --
> Web Designer
>
>
>
> Web: http://ryanroberts.co.uk
>
> Email: hello@ryanroberts.co.uk
>
> Phone: 07759 917 964

Received on Friday, 4 September 2009 22:49:48 UTC