Re: IDs? and classes

Actually, in the context of the "semantic web", and RDF, I have a suggestion
to make, which is that classes be used which are URIs - prefereably real
ones. This would enable two things to happen:

 1. An author could explain, at the URI in a dereferenceable document, what
the class was about or for.

 2. It would become more or less trivial to make RDF assertions about
classes, and therefore about how to re-use existing ones rather than create
new ones for each piece of content.

In general, I am opposed to making a class if it can be avoided (for example,
it is better to use the existing CODE element than to produce a style class
for delineating code examples). In particular I would suggest that the
semantics of map were not extended in HTML 4.01, merely the syntax, which was
extended to match in the real world the semantics of the specification. But
that is a trivial question I guess.

cheers

Charles McCN

On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Jason White wrote:

  Interestingly, there has been significant resistance, within this working
  group, to any attempt to provide common semantics to specific values of
  the HTML CLASS attribute, either within the guidelines or techniques
  documents. The basic rationale was that the semantics of CLASS values were
  left completely unconstrained by the HTML specification and it was
  desirable not to create an inconsistency, or apparent inconsistency,
  between HTML 4.0 and the guidelines. It was also urged that content
  developers should have total freedom in creating style sheets to use the
  CLASS attribute as they wished.

[and so on]

Received on Monday, 12 June 2000 04:41:19 UTC