- From: Dão Gottwald <dao@design-noir.de>
- Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 00:09:07 +0200
- To: Rene Saarsoo <nene@triin.net>
- CC: public-html@w3.org
Rene Saarsoo schrieb: > First of all - it's pretty pointless to argue over > one single proposed predefined class name. It's not the > copyright class and how it's used, it's the principle, whether > we should or should not have predefined class names at all. > > Here are my objections agains predefined class names: > > > 1. Many sites use those class names for something else > > Although "copyright" is quite often used in accordance > with the proposed spec, others are quite often used for > other purposes. Especially ambiguos are the "note" and > "issue", which could also refere to musical note or bank > note; or issue of a newspaper. > > I also recorded uses like the following: > > <span class="note">Note:</span> you can also add the... > > <input type="text" size="30" max="50" name="firstname"> > <span class="note">optional</span> You write "It's not the copyright class and how it's used, it's the principle", and then start with two other special class names. I agree that "note" and "issue" are too ambiguous. Consequence is that they shouldn't be predefined classes, rather than that there should be no predefined classes. > 2. This is not a future-proof way to extend HTML > > Although at the moment we might find a set of classnames, > for which we can be sure, that they are mostly used so, how > we want them to be used, can we be sure, that when we > need to add some more predefined class names in the future, > then those won't introduce any problems? > > No, we can't. Neither can you assure that there won't be a new set of names that can be added. It's pointless. Although it's not *the* way to extend HTML, I see no evidence that it can't be *a* way, now and in the future. > Every time we want to consider a new predefined class name, > we have to go through the whole process again. So what? > 3. Making some class names special is confusing > > Suddenly all authors will need to remember, that there > is this set of predefined class names, which differently > from all the other meaningless class names have meaning. > Currently there are only seven predefined class names, > but in the future we might add a lot more. > > This complicates the class attribute and confuses developers. > It's confusing when class names most of the time have no > meaning what so ever, but someties do have a meaning. A class name should always have a meaning. That is something that authors should learn. Other than that, there's hardly something new. Authors don't even have to know any of the predefined classes -- they can use names that they find useful! The question is whether or not some meanings should be exposed to user agents. > 4. Predefined class names are impossible to validate > > Clearly it would be helpful, if HTML validator would > tell you, if you had misspelled the predefined classname, > but because the normal class names are at the same > namespace, every misspelled predefined class name becomes > normal meaningless class name and can't be therefore > detected by validator. I believe allowing authors define their own classes is an advantage -- that this clashes with validation is a rather small price to pay. --Dao
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 22:09:18 UTC