Re: Underline element minor points

Lachlan Hunt asked:

> Beyond the typographical convention of italicising
> ship names in English prose, what compelling use
> case is there for extracting such a ship name
> from such prose?

Ship names are important landmarks in naval histories.  That said, the
need is obscure enough that <span class=shipname> is probably
sufficient.

Adam van den Hoven wrote
> I  see no reason why you couldn't use
> <a href="..."  method="DELETE">Delete</a> and
> some nice CSS to make it appropriately  styled.

Relying on CSS to indicate semantics is not just bad practice, it is
unsafe.  I often have to turn author CSS off in order to make a page
readable.  (I need bigger fonts than many authors assume, but don't
have a huge window.  Unfortunately, there isn't an easy middle-ground
that respects their non-positioning CSS.)

Philip TAYLOR wrote:
> many of us (but clearly not yet all) seek to express
> not-so-subtle distinctions such as "Ship-name" v.
> "Linnaean-binomial" v. "Book-title" through the
> medium of our markup.  Surely it is not too much to
> ask that the dinosaurs who can see no further than
> "<i>" to express all of these recognise that their
> time is long since past, and yield gracefully to those
> who are preparing for the future

Yes, it is too much too ask.  Even if your request were phrased more
politely, it would be wrong.  Even if it were right, it would be
pointless.  You are welcome to make those distinctions today through
classes.  It *may* be worth adding more custom elements.

Expecting to get *all* such uses into more specific elements is like
expecting essays to be written with only a multiple-choice interface.
For some writing, it will come close, but it will never be good enough
for everything.

Even if the appropriate custom elements existed, expecting *everyone*
to learn them all and use them properly is like expecting people to
stop using abbreviations and to always spell correctly.   (And to
never speed or litter.)  It would take more than a w3c spec to make
any of those actually happen.

-jJ

Received on Monday, 14 January 2008 02:01:16 UTC