- From: Jukka K. Korpela <jukka.k.korpela@kolumbus.fi>
- Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:30:10 +0200
- To: public-html-comments@w3.org
11/4/2011 5:10 PM, mathew wrote: > I'll keep this short: > > The <time> element was the single HTML5 feature that I saw the most compelling need for. I can imagine several _possible_ ways in which <time> might turn out to be useful if supported by relevant software. But I do not know about any actual support, and I don't see what might possibly be a compelling reason to use <time>. > A <data> element would also be a good idea, Since everything in an HTML document is data, I don't see the point. > but timestamps are so commonplace that > they deserve their own element -- just like we give emphasis its own element rather > than using <span> with a CSS style. Most people give emphasis by using <i> or <b>, or maybe <em> or <strong>, quite often by using formatting commands in some web authoring software. These elements have been with us longer than CSS, so there has never been a serious temptation to use <span> with a CSS style for emphasis. I have nothing specific against <time>, but I have not seen any evidence of its being actually useful. And there are surely many other other phrase-level constructs for which some element _could_ be defined. For example, a sentence is a common construct, but we don't have any <sentence> markup - even though it is possible to present several _possibilities_ of utilizing such markup in software. So it might be interesting to know why <time> is there but not, for example, <length> or <mass> or <temperature>. I guess the reason behind <time> is that search engines are supposed to notice <time pubdate>. Does any search engine do anything in that direction? Wait... I seem to have missed a recent change: "Goodbye time, datetime, and pubdate. Hello data and value." http://html5doctor.com/time-and-data-element/ So if any search engine tried anything with <time>, it was a wasted effort, it seems. I don't expect them to get excited about <data> anytime soon. -- Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Received on Saturday, 5 November 2011 19:30:45 UTC