- From: Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com>
- Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 12:12:17 +0100
- To: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>
- Cc: "public-html@w3.org WG" <public-html@w3.org>
Tab Atkins Jr. writes: > Issue 89 Counter Proposal > ========================= Hi Tab. Thanks for preparing this. A few suggestions below: > Rationale > --------- > Some types of content are common enough on the web to be significant, > and complex enough to not have a simple, obvious way to mark them up, > but do not offer enough benefit to directly address their use-cases by > adding to HTML. That makes it sound a bit negative, giving the impression that these scenarios are in a worse position than if they had dedicated HTML elements. I'm not sure that is the case and am wondering if something along the lines of the following may be better: The HTML language should cater for all types of content that are common enough on the web to be significant, otherwise it is doing a disservice to producers of any types which it omits. In creating the HTML5 spec we considered all of these types, and ensured the language caters for them. Some types of content have specific elements; others share elements. In all cases we should state how to mark up these significant types of content, for the benefit of authors who wish to publish such types. (Whether such descriptions are with the definitions of particular elements or in a separate section of idioms -- or a mixture of the two -- is a purely editorial matter that doesn't effect the total information conveyed to authors.) > Negative Effects > ---------------- > By including such authoring advice in the html specification, we open > ourselves to the possibility of "baking in" advice that may be later > superseded by new best practices. However if it's later decided that, say, the best way of marking up tagclouds is with a specific <tagcloud> element then the HTML spec would need updating anyway, to introduce such an element. And on the 'separate document' point: Tab Atkins Jr. writes: > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 7:16 AM, Julian Reschke > <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote: > > > separating the normative spec from authoring advice seems to be the > > better approach; in particular it allows documents to be published > > and progressed independently. > > If someone were to work on a HTML Markup Cookbook spec that contained > more than just the handful of examples currently in the html spec, I'd > support that and recommend removing this section from html itself. I wouldn't. It doesn't make sense for an author wanting to know how to mark up X in HTML5 has to look in one of two different places, depending on whether X has a specific element or is marked up by combining more basic elements -- that's begging the question. Consider an author wishing to mark up the transcript of a conversation. HTML5 provides a way to do this. We considered a specific <dialog> element, but decided instead on <p> (in combination with <b> and other elements). That the decision doesn't involve adding any new elements to HTML5 is not a good reason not to document to authors how HTML5 should be used to do this. Especially since HTML4 said to use <dl> for transcripts. An author familiar with HTML4 and looking for the equivalent in HTML5 will not be helped by no mention of how to do this in HTML5. Smylers -- http://twitter.com/Smylers2
Received on Friday, 4 June 2010 11:12:44 UTC