The right usage of tags

Le 06-03-28 à 05:37, Jukka K. Korpela a écrit :
> The potential has not been used, and there is little reason to  
> think that XHTML 2.0 would change this. And even millions of pages  
> would not help much if that means that only, say, one out of a  
> hundred of defining occurrences of terms has been marked up with  
> <dfn>.

IMHO, it's not really a question of tag names and/or attributes. We  
could have endless debates about those… and we do… (*sigh*)
It's also not about XHTML 2.0, WebApps 1.0 or HTML 4.01, in the sense  
they have/will have (sorry to be cynical here) the same useless  
benefits if thrown out like that.

Applying semantics to a text means *** authoring *** this text.

In this context, who's using elements/attributes?
	- template developers
	- implementers
	- HTML geeks/experts

Not those who are producing most of the content. How people author  
documents as large (not saying only HTML documents).

	- Text Processing tool (Open Office for example)
	- Forms in Browsers
	- Applications

When these documents have structure?

	- Template in Text processing tool (when creating a letter for example)
	- Address book applications (name/address/phone/…)
	- Applications using database engines (catalog for film/etc.)
	- Weblogs with (Title/summary/main post/categories/…)

We can create all elements on earth with rich semantics, if we don't  
give a way for people to do *** Rich authoring *** (aka ways of  
interoperable templating plus UI langage for richer interface in  
browsers), we will not be able to improve the right use of semantics  
on the Web.

An HTML 4.01 authoring tool (not defined) should not propose (except  
if you want a source code view) something like.
	"Add a blockquote"

But could propose
	- "Add a citation" with an interactive form where you can enter the  
text, the author, the source, the origin of the quote (URI, URN, etc.)
	- Cut and Paste from another application ("copy this as a quote")

Unfortunately we don't do that in specifications, define the  
"authoring" class of products and then the requirements which come  
with it.




-- 
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager, QA Activity Lead
   QA Weblog - http://www.w3.org/QA/
      *** Be Strict To Be Cool ***

Received on Tuesday, 28 March 2006 12:34:00 UTC