Re: Computer languages in langage tag

Mariusz Gliwiński wrote:

> Seems like we don't understand each other (in both directions). The 
> basic question is why do we have separate <code> and <lang> elements? 
> Hope it'll let You proceed reading my previous e-mail.
> 

Ultimately HTML is about a light markup of material intended for human 
consumption.  As such, code, which long pre-dates the lang attribute, is 
intended to trigger appropriate presentation for printable material with 
a very tight syntax, and for which layout is likely to be significant. 
That material does not need to be in any well known computer language, 
but, to the extent that it is. and is not obvious, that information 
should be supplied explicitly, not in metadata.  It could be an ad hoc 
pseudo code, or it could be data for a program being described in the 
document.

It's not realistic for web browsers to have special formatting rules for 
every computer language, configuration file format, data interchange 
format, etc., whereas text to speech browsers really can benefit from 
knowing the human language, and even purely visual ones can adjust their 
spacing rules, etc.

If you want to include complete, runnable, code on a web site, you 
should make it into separate resources.  HTML was, originally, intended 
as a glue for locating resources, not as the only format ever used.
-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

Received on Wednesday, 14 April 2010 10:06:46 UTC