Re: Bug 8404 -- taking it to the lists

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:03 AM, Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com> wrote:
> Bug 8404 reads as follows:
>
> Currently the HTML5 specification has an overly broad definition about what can
> be allowed in a figure element:
>
> "The element can thus be used to annotate illustrations, diagrams, photos, code
> listings, etc, that are referred to from the main content of the document, but
> that could, without affecting the flow of the document, be moved away from that
> primary content, e.g. to the side of the page, to dedicated pages, or to an
> appendix."
>
> This is counter to understandings about figure in other businesses and
> environments, where figures are a graphic of some form. In addition, this
> provides a confusing parallel in functionality between figure and aside, enough
> so that people are going to have a difficult time knowing which is which, and
> when to use one over the other. In fact, with this parallelism, we don't need
> both.

As I stated on the bug, this last paragraph is false.  I provided
three examples directly from Google Books results, obtained after a
bare minimum of searching, of both code and tables.  A good 15 minutes
of effort would have provided tens of more examples.  I also made
reference to the first coding book I pulled off of my shelf, which is
full of dozens of code figures (not illustrative, actual code) and
literally hundreds of table figures (again, where the contents are not
just illustrative, but are actually necessary for understanding the
text that refers to it).  In all of these cases the figures match
exactly with what the spec says - they are part of the document, but
could be moved away, perhaps into an appendix, without affecting the
meaning or flow of the document.

It takes only a modicum of effort to thoroughly disprove your
assertion.  It is simply incorrect, and cannot be used as a valid
reasoning for anything in this bug.  Please stop attempting to use it
as justification.

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 14:19:46 UTC