RE: The History of <aside> for sidebars

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
> There doesn't appear to be any further discussion about the name before
> it was changed, but other e-mails from a few days after that seem to
> describe it as:
>
> | <aside> is for what are typically rendered in printed media as
> | floating sidebars. Short inline comments are catered for by the
> |  "title" attribute:
> |
> |     <p>Put the disc in the <span title="that cup holder thingie">cd
> |     drive</span></p>
> |
> |  ...or, more typically, simply by marking the comment with
> |  parentheses, as you did in your example:
> |
> |     <p>Put the disc in the cd drive (that cup holder thingie)</p>


If ever there was a damning indictment of WHAT WG's use of the IRC 
back-channel to 'make decisions' without due consultation, here it is.

It is now water long-gone under the bridge, but even recent discussion 
(http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090904#l-322 ) shows that this 
lesson has not been learned.

IF YOU HAVE PROPOSALS - POST THEM PUBLICLY (and at both your club and W3C 
mailing lists) - play by your own rules!



Meanwhile, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>
>
> Blogrolls and archive links are often on the sidebar, true, but I
> think that's mostly a pure style issue - they are usually tall and
> display well with a constrained width, which makes them fit much
> better in a sidebar than a header.

(JF wonders how "tall" and "constrained width" affects the non-sighted 
user... )

Not that the point is not taken, but structure is more than just display.

JF

Received on Friday, 4 September 2009 20:09:26 UTC