Re: [XHTML2] Poor little old <a>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ernest Cline" <ernestcline@mindspring.com>
To: <www-html@w3.org>; <www-html-editor@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 8:31 PM
Subject: [XHTML2] Poor little old <a>


>
> Let's face it. There is very little purpose that <a> serves in the
> current working draft. About the only thing it still has going for it
> is that links specified by <a> are still supposed to look like links.


I think that the removal of <a> isn't a bad idea. This would force UA
manufacturers to support hyperlinking on any element in order to handle
XHTML 2.0 and perhaps speed its implementation. This would also mean that
wider support for pseudo-selectors (such as :hover) would be necessary too.
The danger with this approach, however, is that XHTML 2.0 will be seen as
too hardcore, resulting in slow uptake by the UA manufacturers.

For similar reasons, I approve of the removal of <acronym>. It pains me to
think I'll have to markup all my acronyms as abbreviations, but it will
hopefully force the likes of Microsoft to build support for <abbr> into
their UAs, which will hopefully have a pleasant cascade effect on non-XHTML
2.0 authors as well.

Whatever happens, I suspect it will be a long time before any kind of
support for XHTML 2.0 appears.

Simon Jessey

w: http://jessey.net/blog/
e: simon@jessey.net

Received on Wednesday, 9 April 2003 20:46:57 UTC