- From: William F Hammond <hammond@csc.albany.edu>
- Date: 08 Aug 2002 15:51:20 -0400
- To: SCJessey@aol.com
- Cc: www-html@w3.org
SCJessey@aol.com writes:
> > Every argument for deprecating <br> in favor of <line> also applies to
> deprecating <hr> in favor of <section>. The only structural use for <hr> is as
> a section separator -- just like <br> is a line separator. With XHTML 2.0, we
> have the <line> and <section> elements for marking up lines and sections, thus
> <br> and <hr> are not needed anymore. <br> is deprecated -- why not <hr>?
> I agree with this line of reasoning. The goal of the W3C has always been to
> separate structure from presentation. The horizontal rule would be purely a
> presentational element if it coexisted with <section>. I've always regarded
> it to be something of a peculiar anomaly as it is.
> Simon Jessey
> http://jessey.net
In LaTeX circles there is the common wisdom that the maximum sane
number of section levels is 3. More than that represents bad taste.
(The use of LaTeX's fourth level called "paragraph" is deprecated.)
Moreover, sections have headers; a section without a header is just
a classic HTML-style "div".
So, for example, within a level 3 section one might indeed reasonably
want to use "hrules". I believe the historic origin of "hrule" is in
chalk talks.
If I can imagine two or more different presentation contexts for
"hrule", I'm inclined to say that it represents some abstract form of
presentation that for the purposes of XHTML should be regarded as
*content* .
-- Bill
Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 15:51:22 UTC