Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> No, the semantics come from its definition, not its tag name.  If a
spec 
> defines an element with the tag name <j79hfd98y28> to be for marking
up 
> a person's name, then that's what it is.  The tag name is just an
opaque 
> string that doesn't affect the semantics in any way.  It just helps 
> authors to have meaningful and memorable tag names.
> 
> However, if you create your own generic XML document, using tag names 
> like <name> and <address>, then those elements don't inherently have
any 
> semantics at all.  Although you may define your own semantics, unless 
> those semantics become known by others, the elements are meaningless
to 
> everyone else, and your semantics are totally useless.
> 
> Semantics only become useful when there are tools that make use of
them 
> in a useful way.  The semantics in HTML documents are useful because
they 
> are widely understood and implemented.
> 

So <name>Joe Blogs</name> is meaningless with out a spec to tell me that
'name' means a name, while <j79hfd98y28>[EMAIL PROTECTED]&*</j79hfd98y28> is
meaningful if a spec says so?

What if I write spec that says simply: "The meanings of all my tags
names are the same as the meanings defined in the Standard Oxford
English Dictionary"? What if I claim my spec to be the English language?

I could then further claim my document is more widely understood (and
implemented?) than HTML, simply because more people understand plain
English than HTML.

(I'm playing devil's advocate here, but only to show how absurd this
is.)

cheers,
Geoff



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