Re: XHTML 2.0 considered harmful

On 1/15/03 7:06 AM, "Mikko Rantalainen" <mira@cc.jyu.fi> wrote:

> 
> Ian Hickson wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Daniel Glazman wrote:
>> 
>>> I think that <br/> cannot be replaced by <l>. Read the following
>>> 
>>> http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/weblog/archived/2003_01_12_glazblogarc.html#87
>>> 473606
>> 
>> This example is a good example of abuse of the <br> element. Semantically,
>> ... ...
> 
> I agree. It seems that those who prefer br over l are the same ones that
> want to keep the style attribute.

False.  I prefer <L> over <BR> as a wrote in this thread already, and I want
to keep the style attribute.


> This far, every example for the need
> of br and/or style attribute has only demonstrated that the author of
> that specific example hasn't really understood semantic markup.

This is a false conflation.


> If you feel that you have to use br or style attribute try to think for
> a second what's the reason you "need" those. Think about *why* you're
> trying to achieve the line break or specific styling, not *what* you're
> trying to achieve.

If you cannot see the need for the style attribute, it may simply indicate
that you have not experienced the real world situations where it is
necessary.  

I think this is in general the problem with the discussion of the 'style'
attribute.  On one side there are semantic purists that don't understand
what the problem is and therefore claim there is no problem, and on the
other side there are _experienced_ folks that have seen numerous real world
situations where the style attribute is not only useful, but essential.

These real world situations have been listed in threads in this list, but
always ignored or belittled.


>> On the other hand, valid uses for <br> all map directly into uses of
>> the <l>...</l> element:
>> 
>>    Poems <br/>                 <l> Poems </l>
>> ...
> I fully agree with the examples here. Another reasonable example would
> be to markup every line of a computer program represented in a XHTML
> document with l elements to allow intelligent wrapping. One could add
> CSS style to indent wrapped lines or something.

Agreed.


>> Your third conclusion is one of esthetics and education. Personally I
>> find it much easier to think of a line than a line break, and I think
> 
> And what comes to teaching a document markup language to new people,
> XHTML2 looks like much simpler as a whole than XHTML1.x.

Then don't call it XHTML2.  Call it something else, like "SHML" (Simplified
Hypertext Markkup Language).


Tantek

Received on Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:17:54 UTC