RE: Write-up about semantics in HTML5 from A List Apart

We can't please all of the people all of the time. The only solutions (that
I can think of) to the problem that is at the root of this are things that
are, for better or worse, solved by XML, not HTML. Those who know me, know
that personally I highly dislike XML on a lot of level. But frankly, the "X"
stands for "Extensible" and the "HT" in "HTML" stands for "Hypertext". If
you want to do something other than "Hypertext", use XML.

J.Ja

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Boris Zbarsky
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 11:00 AM
> To: public-html@w3.org
> Cc: john@westciv.com
> Subject: Re: Write-up about semantics in HTML5 from A List Apart
> 
> 
> Since there's no sane way to comment on that article without
> registration, I'd just like to point out that the author basically
> proposes using the <input type=""> model for everything.  This runs
> into
> serious issues with DOM APIs.  For example, if a @structure can be
> tossed on to any element, and having structur="header" implies some
> sort
> of DOM API (e.g. getting the heading level), then all HTML elements
> have
> to expose this DOM API.  This leads to all sorts of methods and
> properties floating around that at best do nothing most of the time
> until some magic attributes are set.
> 
> It also means that implementation is complicated because semantics can
> change on the fly via setAttribute.  I view this as highly undesirable.
> 
> -Boris

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 2009 16:57:22 UTC