Re: XHTML 2.0 considered harmful

Philip TAYLOR [PC336/H-XP] wrote:
 >
 >fantasai wrote:
 >> >
 >> >Then use class="green" instead!
 >>
 >>Of course I can do that. But my *point* is that once
 >>"special" was used for the green paragraph, it could
 >>not be used for the pencil box description. It applies
 >>equally to using "green". If I use "green" for the
 >>green paragraph, I cannot use "green" for the pencil
 >>box description.
 >
 > This really is a ridiculous display of naivety : the
 > creation of class names requires a reasonable degree
 > of inventiveness if they are to be inherently meaningful --
 > just because you can think of only "green" and "special"
 > as being appropriate says nothing about HTML (the topic
 > of the list) or even about CSS (which is actually what
 > is being discussed) but says a lot about your own
 > linguistic limitations ...

My linguistic limitations aren't in naming classes. They're
in getting you people to understand what I'm saying. The
argument was about whether using class + selector was equivalent
to using the style attribute. It is not, and one reason is that
once a name is used for one class, it cannot be used again for
another class. If I had used a 'style' attribute instead of
class="special" to associate color with the paragraph, the name
'special' would be free for other things like the "today's
special" class. *That* is what I was demonstrating. Whether such
an argument is strong enough to justify the 'style' attribute is
*beside the point*.

Now, if you would please re-read what I wrote a little more
carefully--sympathetically keeping in mind that my linguistic
abilities are limited and therefore understanding what I meant
may require a little extra effort on your part--you will (I
hope) see that your response was to an argument I never made.

~fantasai

Received on Thursday, 16 January 2003 19:19:21 UTC