--- On Wed, 3/16/11, Barney Carroll <barney.carr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know how many of you follow the W3C specification > working groups discussions. I don't, but I've been alerted to some > pretty radical activity thereon just under a week ago. The > relevant message is here: > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Mar/0245.html Thanks very much for posting this, Barney. I'm one that doesn't follow the W3C working group discussions, so this is the first I've heard of it. > In short, this means that HTML5 rescinds HTML4's guidance > on the use of the table markup structure for its presentational > layout attributes, such that such use will now be HTML5-valid, > provided said table has a role attribute set to "presentation" [1]. > > [...] > > I'd be interested to know if anybody is relieved or excited about this > decision — I can well imagine a lot of people who've spent countless > hours elaborately conceiving of CSS trickery to emulate these effects > leaping for joy at the ability to legitimately, by the book, dig up that > convenient markup structure that allows them to throw away huge chunks > of CSS and stop worrying about odd fringe cases, unexpected box model > bugs, etc. I think terms such as "trickery" and "emulate" are a bit misleading. Unless, by trickery, you're referring to the fact that, for example, float wasn't originally conceived to present columns. But I don't think controlling layout using CSS is trickery or emulation: it's what CSS is intended for. I also don't find that it takes "countless hours" to layout well marked-up content on the page. > But I'd like to hear people's opinions. Not so much a 'is this a good > thing' yes/no poll as an inquiry into whether this changes anything for > anybody — will it affect your working methods? OK, then :) I'll say "no", not just from an idealistic point of view (although I still think it's valid to adhere to the method that HTML is used to syntactically describe content, and CSS is used to style it), but also because I find the other advantages (easier to maintain, smaller page weight, cleaner markup) worthwhile. I'm very surprised the W3C have made this decision. I note, though, that they say the issue may change if someone can provide "evidence that correct usage is growing rapidly and that that growth is expected to continue" Depending on their definition of "rapidly", I'm sure a quick analysis of web pages over time would undoubtedly prove this. Anecdotally, the web design community has moved away from table-based markup and adopted CSS for layout. It's just a shame that some of the big players (<cough> google, facebook) are so resolute in their old, bad habits, that the W3C now feels under pressure to legitimise those habits. - Bobby ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
