- From: Ian Hickson <exxieh@bath.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 21:27:48 -0000
- To: neil@bigpic.com, www-html@w3.org
I asked: >> I am confused as to why TT, I, B, BIG and SMALL are not deprecated >> while most of the other formatting elements/attributes are. What >> makes them special? Neil replied: >B and I seem so natural and so often used to get rid of them would be >dangerous. Italics / Bold isn't always meant to draw special >attention, or to put emphasis on, but often meant to just be >different from the other text. Well, to paraphrase the spec, "their use is discouraged in favour of style sheets". If you want different from the text then you can use <SPAN CLASS=DIFFERENT></SPAN>, or just <P CLASS=SPECIAL>. This "draw special attention" goes against the whole point of HTML as a document markup language, surely? It seems to me that HTML is designed to get information across *whatever the medium*, while style sheets cope with what to make it look/sound like. If HTML gets bogged down in media-dependant presentation hints this entire aim breaks down. For quoting text there is <Q>, for citing a source there is <CITE>, for the first instance of a word there is <DFN>, for variables there is <VAR>, etc... (And in cases where emphasis is meant, then one uses <EM>, emphasis and <STRONG>, strong emphasis) >BIG and SMALL seem likely candidates for removal, but logically they >represent something a little more important, or alittle less >important, there doesn't appear to be logical markup that does >this otherwise. Granted. >TT is used again to distinguish text, and is used very often to >indicate something on the screen. This one is likely the highest in >priortiy for things to be removed. But my point is why isn't it deprecated while <S> and <STRIKE> are? They fall under the same category and in fact TT has more elements already coping with "screen output" and similar things! (eg, <CODE>, <KBD>, <SAMP>) Just my two 0.02 ¤ 's worth... -- Ian Hickson -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT/M/S d- s+: a--- C++(+++)>$ U P L+ !E W++ N++ o? K? w++>+++ O- !M V- PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t 5+++>++++ X- R+++ tv b++(+++) DI D++ G e-(*)>+++++ h!()(--) y? ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Received on Wednesday, 17 December 1997 16:29:30 UTC