Re: Too classy? (Was: storing info in XSL-FO)

In a message dated 20/08/2002 10:44:06 GMT Daylight Time, howcome@opera.com 
writes:


> Also sprach Svgdeveloper@aol.com:
> 
> > > > All HTML tells you is that something is a paragraph, a level 1 
> > > > heading, a table, monospaced, preformatted, and a few other things. 
> > > > <SINGER>Madonna</SINGER> is more semantic than <SPAN>Madonna</SPAN>. 
> > > 
> > > You can combine the two:
> > > 
> > >   <span class="singer">Madonna</span>
> 
> > This, I humbly suggest, is a recipe for disaster.
> 
> How is:
> 
>   <span class="singer">Madonna</span>
> 
> more disasterous than
> 
>   <SINGER>Madonna</SINGER>
> 
> The word "singer" is ambigous in both cases (sowing machine? author?
> music?).

Hakon,

Please take a look at my issue request at
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Aug/0266.html

That may help you understand the issues as I presently see them.

Adding a class attribute in HTML could, in principle, provide some 
information about what I term "Element Type Name Semantics".

However, it doesn't add what I termed "Structural Semantics". For example, if 
a <singer> element were nested within a <CDCatalogue> element or a <
SewingMachineManufacturers> element we (but perhaps not computers) get 
additional semantic information.

Similarly, if the <singer> element had a namespace declaration 
xmlns="http://www.sopranos.com" we get at least a hint of Namespace semantics 
too.

If, in addition, we have metadata related to that namespace information we 
likely will get yet another aspect of semantics added.

Do you believe that these additional dimensions of semantics can be captured 
and expressed within a class attribute in HTML/XHTML?

Regards

Andrew Watt