Re: XHTML2: Elements to include and not to include (i and b)

12.8.2002 21:18:51 "Philip TAYLOR [PC335/O-XP]" <P.Taylor@Rhul.Ac.Uk> kirjoitti:

(Sent to only Philip Taylor at first by mistake)

>Samuli Lintula wrote:
>> 
>> I would like to propose including <i> and <b> in the XHTML2. Even if they are mostly
>> presentational, their *presentation* holds information.
>> 
>> In biology, systematic names for species are written in italics:
>> <i>S. cerevisiae</i> in a middle of sentence might not be understood as a species if it
>> wasn't for the <i> tags. <span class="bug-name"> does not bear the same information.
>
>With respect, I could not disagree more :

It seems I'm a bit thick. If I misunderstood what you wrote, don't hesitate to correct me.

> the /viewer/ of the page will
>not see "<span class="bug-name">S. cerevisiae</span>" (or even 
><span class="Linnaean-binomial">S. cerevisiae</span>) but will rather see 
>S. cerevisiae rendered in italics PROVIDED THAT the associated style-sheet
>renders objects of class "Linnaean-binomial" (or "bug-name") in italics.

I should have been more clear about that. I meant to imply that there is a CSS rule
span.bug-name { font-style : italic ; } , that's all. The class name is irrelevant and in 
the example could have as well been "otokan-nimi".

>The blind or partially-sighted reader, OTOH, will be /told/ that "S. cerevisiae"
>is a Linnaean binomial, rather than having to guess for him- or herself based
>solely on its default rendering in italics...

I care very much about disabilities and non-visual medias. Still, nothing in the world 
changes the fact that in biology (for example) <i>, not <span class="*">, by it's visual 
presentation carries *information* and that there is no eqiuivalent to it in aural or 
braille media (that I know of).

The way I see it, is that <i> would be a *context specific* scientific (or non-scientific)  
special elelement whose presentation by convention is italic. This is equivalent to the 
usege of <sup> in XHTML2.

>What I would /like/ to be able to do, as you may infer from my
>immediately preceding posting, is tag it as
>
>	<Linnaean-binomial>S. cerevisiae</>

One could invent new tags for XHTML2, but then one should also replace <sup> with
<number-of-atoms>, <index>, <atomic-number>, <proportion-of-a-DNA-or-RNA-base-in-a-
consensus-sequence> etc.

-- 
Samuli Lintula             @ http://www.samulilintula.net/
Department of Biochemistry @ University of Turku
1. Varavaltuutettu (vihr.) @ Turku
http://www.samulilintula.net/netti/operavukk.php

Received on Monday, 12 August 2002 15:43:49 UTC