Re: code, samp, kbd, var

On Fri, May 18, 2007 at 12:44:17AM +0200, Frank Ellermann wrote:

> Tina Holmboe wrote:
> 
> >    (a) All presentational elements - and yes, this does include I, B,
> >        FONT, and the way M is defined today - are removed from the HTML
> >        specification.
> 
> Breaking backwards compatibility for something that's supposed to work,
> if that's your vision of progress PLEASE don't abuse text/html for the
> outcome.  Some cases about <i>, <b>, and related issues I'm aware of:

  Interestingly enough, it is my serious, and honest, opinion that
  keeping the I- and B-elements in the HTML specification does nothing
  but maintain the status quo.

  HTML isn't a presentational language. There is no way to put it more
  politely than this: any other view of it is based on its misuse,
  and will do us no good.

  If we /keep/ I/B but change them to have any meaning other than
  purely decorative, then we are indeed breaking the web by 
  assuming meaning from either /correctly used/ decorations,
  or /incorrectly/ used decorations - but regardless they are
  /decorations/ and nothing else.


 
> Of course it's presentational in some sense.  If you want to add stuff

  It's presentational in ALL senses. Until and unless we can get an
  UA to actually tell the difference between bold-used-for-decoration
  and bold-used-for-emphasis we /require/ that authors use B for the
  former and STRONG for the latter, and we can only do more harm by
  changing it.

  The entire idea behind a markup language such as HTML is to
  avoid specifying how something look, and rather focus on what
  something /is/ - and then leave CSS for the look'n'feel.

  Make up your minds. Either make HTML into a *proper* presentational
  language, and stop pay lipservice to the semantics-, structure-
  and accessibility-crowd, or cut out the accumulated fat from
  the last seventeen years.

  This half-measure won't get us anywhere.

-- 
 -  Tina Holmboe      Developer's Archive           Greytower Technologies
                   http://www.dev-archive.net      http://www.greytower.net

Received on Friday, 18 May 2007 12:09:30 UTC