Re: Cleaning House

At 03:27 AM 5/6/2007 -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>On May 6, 2007, at 3:04 AM, Tina Holmboe wrote:
>>On Sat, May 05, 2007 at 08:41:23PM -0400, Murray Maloney wrote:
>>
>>>elements. But consider <i class="ship">.
>>
>>   Meaning nothing. Do you mean a ship name? Or is it an abbreviate
>>   name for a shipping label? Or perhaps even a status saying whether
>>   something is about to ship?
>
>What is the correct way, according to you, to mark up a ship name?
>Instead of <i class="ship">HMS Pinafore</i>. I'm assuming <span
>class="ship">HMS Pinafore</span> is no better, since <span> is
>semantically null. <em>HMS Pinafore</em> is clearly wrong, since
>setting ship names in italics has nothing to do with emphasis. Using
>no markup at all is wrong, since then there is no way to achieve the
>italic visual presentation.

In HTML, per se, there is no "correct way" to markup a ship name.
However, we are free to overlay semantics on any element by using
the CLASS attribute and defining its interpretation in a profile.

Given available elements, I would prefer to use <i> because it has
a fallback which satisfies a requirement that ship names be presented
in italic typeface (when possible), and because it has no other semantic
which might introduce confusion. Certainly <span> would be a
reasonable choice, but is does not offer the fallback advantage.

Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 16:20:46 UTC