- From: Frank Tobin <ftobin@uiuc.edu>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 10:48:02 -0500 (CDT)
- To: Daniel Hiester <alatus@earthlink.net>
- cc: www-html <www-html@w3.org>
Daniel Hiester, at 22:19 on Thu, 19 Jul 2001, wrote:
Why is it that we don't simply have an element that means 'list.'
Why was it so important to have the markup parser distinguish the
difference between an ordered and unordered list?
I tend to agree here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but semantically, a list
contains data that should be ordered to be understood correctly. This
is what <ol> is for.
We also have a concept of "unordered list", which supposedly <ul> is for.
However, I would argue that our current <ul>'s are really nothing more
than a sequence of blocks, such as
<p>paragraph about cars</p>
<p>paragraph about trucks</p>
... which is a sequence of paragraphs that is not ordered semantically
like an <ol> would be.
In fact, I would argue that <ul> currently is nothing more than a sequence
of <p>'s (or some other block element) with some presentational markup.
Another idea is that <ul>'s are really "bags" (kinda like RDF bags),
containing truly unordered data that is somehow related. But calling them
"lists" is confusing, since lists are necessarily ordered.
--
Frank Tobin http://www.uiuc.edu/~ftobin/
Received on Friday, 20 July 2001 11:48:05 UTC