Re: Let every element have a src attribute

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> Dao Gottwald wrote:
>> Elliott Sprehn wrote:
>>> This would seem to complicate semantics to me. What's the difference 
>>> between <p src=""> and <div src=""> in terms of the meaning of the 
>>> replaced content?
>> The first replaces a paragraph by an external source, the latter 
>> replaces, well ... anything (since div doesn't carry significant semantics.)
> 
>    That's interesting, because I thought it was the other way around.
> The content is supposed to replace the image if the image doesn't load.

 From the XHTML2 WD:

(1) "This collection causes the contents of a remote resource to be 
embedded in the document in place of the element's content."
(2) "If accessing the remote resource fails, [...] the content of the 
element must be processed instead."

Both aspects are perfectly consistent.

>>> If you think about how it is now <p><img></p> is an image inside the 
>>> paragraph, but if we allow <p src=""> then is that an image inside the 
>>> paragraph or is the image itself a paragraph or is it just an image 
>>> unless it doesn't load and then its a paragraph?
>> The image itself is the paragraph.
> 
>    I've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words", but this is
> ridiculous. In the current model, the image doesn't replace a paragraph;
> the paragraph is fallback for the image in cases where the person either
> can't obtain the image or can't see it. An image doesn't communicate a
> paragraph of information. The paragraph is just there to give you a
> vague sense of the image.

Apparently we're talking about different types of images. I'm not 
proposing to remove <img>, becausue there are clearly images that aren't 
just text replacements / can't be replaced by text. Yet there are images 
that do communicate well-definable chunks of information.

An example: http://design-noir.de/log/2006/12/immer-noch-nicht-gezahlt/
Or just think of the million logos out there, like 
<http://www.linguatec.net/images/logos/linguatec.de.gif>.

>> Note that the same is possible with CSS3, e.g.
>>    p { content: url(foo.png); }
>> But that works with images only; a in-markup solution with the "type" 
>> attribute can be more powerful.
> 
>    Then why not just use <object>?

Its fallback mechanism isn't well supported, and I'd like to avoid the 
more complex markup.

>>> Also, what benefit beyond slightly reducing the markup by removing the 
>>> <object> tag does this provide?
>> It's more intuitive and links the external source with the semantics it 
>> carries directly.
> 
>    I don't see it as more intuitive at all. What the heck is "src"
> supposed to mean to anyone?

Are you kidding me?

>    The image IS the semantics! If it wasn't, you could just use CSS. The
> surrounding markup doesn't define the image any more than the
> surrounding text defines a particular word.

Just as with text, an image isn't self-descriptive, even it it contains 
the semantics. That's what we have tags for.

Received on Monday, 2 April 2007 12:28:29 UTC