Re: XHTML2 and JS ads

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006, David Woolley wrote:
> 
> I don't believe that XHTML 2 is aimed at the commercial web site market.  
> If it were, it ought to have a specific element for advertisements [A].

It would have a lot more than just an <adverts> element -- commercial Web 
sites would need elements for things like context menus, asides, footers, 
meters, etc, and would need to define APIs for how these things interact 
with the DOM, as well as having APIs for graphics, sound, drag and drop, 
networking, and so forth.


> I think it is aimed at the intra- and extra-net markets and particularly 
> for the sort of company that is based on knowledge which is not finely 
> structured in the way that a sales catalogue is structured.

As far as I can tell, actually, XHTML2 is aimed at simple documentation 
pages, and complex tax forms.


> [A] the advertisers may object to this because it makes it easy to 
> mechanically delete the adverts, but, otherwise, advertising isn't 
> consistent with a language which has correct, if simple, represenation 
> of structure as a goal, as it is striving to break the structure to 
> prevent its being ignored.

The biggest reason _not_ to have an <advert> element is that people 
wouldn't use it, thus making it useless. This is the same argument against 
having <img longdesc>, <object standby> (or in XHTML2, <standby>), etc.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 8 August 2006 22:56:22 UTC