Re: Isn't the word "banner" too presentational and none-semantic?

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 7:21 PM, Chaals McCathieNevile <w3b@chaals.com>wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:11:12 +0200, Ian Yang <ian@invigoreight.com> wrote:
>
>  On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 5:57 PM, Russ Weakley <russ@maxdesign.com.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have always found it makes more sense when "Eric" is added before this
>>> landmark role within the markup.
>>>
>>
>> What does that mean??
>>
>
> It means Russ (and Patrick) are teasing you. Although I don't think they
> mean to be unkind (they are both very friendly helpful people for the most
> part*)
>
> To be serious, there is a problem we often face in making standards.
> Choosing teh wrong name for something means people misunderstand it and so
> mis-use it. That can be very expensive. The "blur" event got its name
> because blur is the opposite of focus in certain contexts. But for many
> people it was apparently confusing.
>
> On the one hand, this suggests we should be thoughtful with the names we
> use for things. On the other hand, there are limits to how useful this is.
> When arabic-, chinese- or russian-spaking developers look at tag or API
> names may of them are meaningless.
>
> While there is no functional difference between the abbr and acronym
> elements in HTML4 and there is no useful distinction in english anyway, I
> have seen spanish speakers (for whom the terms have clearly different
> meanings) spend hundreds of hours of work (which is never "free") trying to
> determine among themselves whether it makes sense to behave as though the
> terms were spanish and meaningful, or follow browser implementation and
> ignore the semantic difference.
>
> When people make script libraries and use an alias for functions whose
> name is "too long and/or complex" it can be taken as a sign that the naming
> was wrong. But that always depends on context - people who don't use the
> script alias much can equally find it very confusing, while the long name
> helps remind them what the API actually does.
>
> In the end "words" are just magic markers for an idea, so that we can
> communicate consistently about what the idea is, and develop shared
> understanding. So we should spend the right amount of effort getting the
> name right the first time, and then we should not worry too much about the
> fine details. Of course, that conveniently ignores the question of how much
> is the right amount and what is a fine detail, but there are no gneal
> answers for those questions.
>
> *And to stop being serious and start being obscure, the most part of
> Patrick and Russ is below the neck - which some people suggest might be
> enough. Besides, Mr Lawson clearly *is* defined by his name, so maybe there
> is something in it after all.
>
> Cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> --
> Chaals - standards declaimer
>

I see. Thanks a lot, Chaals.

Sincerely,
Ian Yang