Re: XHTML 2.0 and the href and src attributes

I wrote:
 >As a somewhat related aside, why is the Hypertext attribute collection
 >used so liberally? What is the intended meaning of e.g.:
 >
 >     <em href="http://www.example.com/">
 >        this,
 >     </em>

To which Jonny Axelsson replied:
 >For most purposes equivalent to:
 >  <em><a href="http://www.example.com/">this,</a></em>

I wrote:
 >surely this would make the 'a' element somewhat redundant?

To which Jonny Axelsson replied:
 >It would make the a element entirely redundant.

This isn't strictly true; only the a element retains the hreflang, type, 
charset, rel, and rev attributes, all of which (arguably) add value. I'd 
especially lament the loss of 'rel' and 'rev' were a to be deleted 
entirely; although browser support for these attributes is limited (to 
put it politely), these attributes are potentially very useful. So the a 
element still has its place.


In addition, in quickly checking up on the attributes named above, I 
believe I've come across an error in the spec; section 9.1 contains the 
following example:

     <a name="anchor-one">This is the location of anchor one.</a>

The name attribute isn't defined anywhere; and I'd rather it stay that 
way, since as has been mentioned the functionality of the above example 
can be achieved with the id attribute anyway.


- Chris Mannall

Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 11:27:13 UTC