Re: Getting beyond the ping pong match

Mark Birbeck schrieb:
> 
> Dao,
> 
>> All the examples that you gave could be solved by defining 'search' for
>> the form element only, which would be a good enough context. I'm not
>> sure why WA1 defines it for aside, body, p, section and span.
> 
> Wow! Are you really suggesting that we just keep hacking the language
> until it does whatever it is that you want it to do?

No, I'm not suggesting to hack the language, given that the WA1 draft 
isn't a finalized language yet. I'm suggesting to standardize class 
names where it makes sense, which can of course mean to correct the WA1 
draft. aside, body, p, section and span seems to be a random choice to 
define 'search' for, and since Rene pointed to other use cases of the 
'search' class, I'm proposing to not define a meaning for random elements.

> It might be worth
> taking a step back here and looking at what is being presented. The
> argument so far is that we take something that is clearly flawed and
> inconsistent, and try to address its limitations by adding more
> inconsistencies. Hacking does have its place, but this is getting out
> of hand!

Obviously, my argument is not that we take something that is clearly 
flawed and inconsistent. That would be stupid. I'm arguing for a clean 
and consistent standard. If you think otherwise, it would be a good 
start to tell me detailed where my proposal is flawed and inconsistent. 
For instance, how does defining the search class for form elements add 
inconsistencies?

> What I find most ironic is that in one thread we have people arguing
> that HTML 5 is built on the idea of backwards compatibility and
> graceful degradation, and in another thread we find that we can no
> longer use any class values that we like.

You're not doing yourself any favour if you use class names that clash 
with the actual content. So yes, I'm arguing to limit your rights -- 
mind you, you won't be punished of you ignore that. No site will really 
break if the author uses nonsensical class names.

There is the risk to get false positives, as it's always the case with 
semantic markup. That risk is far outweighed by the semantic enrichment 
of existing and future content. Prefixed class names or the role 
attribute, on the other hand, would be doomed to marginal niche existence.

--Dao

Received on Monday, 7 May 2007 14:47:14 UTC