RE: XHTML 2.0 considered harmful

Christoph Päper wrote:

> >
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/01/13.html#semantic_obsolescence
> 
> Actually it's full of misunderstandings. The removal of cite 
> (without explanation / alternative) is IMHO an error. 

IMNSHO, releasing the last two XHTML 2.0 drafts was an error.  Not only
the <cite> issue, but there was no mention of the 'start' and 'value'
attributes on <ol> and <li> which had been discussed here (and which
several members said here would probably be re-incorporated).  So, no
mention of those, but no problem with bringing up absurdities like <nr/>
and <security/>. 

Also, questions about <q> being replaced with <quote> were never
satisfactorily answered.  Tantek addressed it only slightly -- by
suggesting we read the i18n and HTML archives, by which he must have
meant the Member Only archives, because there is no discussion of any
<q> quoting "problems" on any of those public lists ...

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2002Sep/0107.html

> I'm happy that img etc. are gone in favor of object. line/l 
> is also much better than br and h+section better than h1-6.

Of course they are.  But the swamp always has to try to pull those who
are attempting to evolve out of it back in.  Suck suck.  Slurp slurp.

> | Not deprecate it slowly over time, mind you, but just 
> | fucking drop it.
> 
> There's no need for deprecation in a not backwards compatible 
> language.

Exactly.  

> > It also dumps the extremely useful 'style' attribute
> 
> Except for quick-n-dirty CSS test suites I can't see any use 
> for it. It's fully replacable by id + CSS, too.

And class + CSS.

Inline CSS is fine for those who want RTF with angle-brackets -- FOs for
the web (with apologies to Håkon).  What's wrong with those folks
sticking with HTML 4, or XHTML 1, or tag soup?  Those will be supported
by any mainstream browser probably for at least a hundred years, if not
a thousand.  

The rest of us would indeed like a *better* HTML-ish markup
(non-Docbook, non-TEI, but drawing from their experience) for the web.
XHTML 2.0 is an attempt in that direction.  

And Mark Pilgrim really shouldn't be jumping on bandwagons just because
they're "standards" from the W3C.  :)


/Jelks

Received on Tuesday, 14 January 2003 13:29:44 UTC