11/4/2011 5:10 PM, mathew wrote:
I'll keep this short:
The <time> element was the single HTML5 feature that I saw the most compelling
need for.
I can imagine several _possible_ ways in which <time> might turn out to
be useful if supported by relevant software. But I do not know about any
actual support, and I don't see what might possibly be a compelling
reason to use <time>.
A <data> element would also be a good idea,
Since everything in an HTML document is data, I don't see the point.
but timestamps are so commonplace that
they deserve their own element -- just like we give emphasis its own element
rather
> than using <span> with a CSS style.
Most people give emphasis by using <i> or <b>, or maybe <em> or
<strong>, quite often by using formatting commands in some web authoring
software. These elements have been with us longer than CSS, so there has
never been a serious temptation to use <span> with a CSS style for emphasis.
I have nothing specific against <time>, but I have not seen any evidence
of its being actually useful. And there are surely many other other
phrase-level constructs for which some element _could_ be defined. For
example, a sentence is a common construct, but we don't have any
<sentence> markup - even though it is possible to present several
_possibilities_ of utilizing such markup in software.
So it might be interesting to know why <time> is there but not, for
example, <length> or <mass> or <temperature>. I guess the reason behind
<time> is that search engines are supposed to notice <time pubdate>.
Does any search engine do anything in that direction?
Wait... I seem to have missed a recent change:
"Goodbye time, datetime, and pubdate. Hello data and value."
http://html5doctor.com/time-and-data-element/
So if any search engine tried anything with <time>, it was a wasted
effort, it seems.
I don't expect them to get excited about <data> anytime soon.
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
