Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Mordechai Peller]

Andy Budd wrote:

Seems like using  or  are pretty much the same.
No, here the span is worse. But it isn't a fair comparison since on one 
hand you're using the wrong tool the right way, but on the other hand 
you're using the right tool the wrong way. The class and id attribute, 
especially in a div or span, is a tool for conveying semantic content. 
Even something like , while better, is far from ideal. At 
least "col1" says it's a division of the content, while class="italics" 
only says something about presentation.

Mordechai
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Re[2]: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Rimantas Liubertas]

PF> Yeah, I think were probably done on this topic. The point is that the
PF> scientific community's need for italicisation of species names IS a visual
PF> one and it predates the web by centuries.
<...>
Well, you decide, done or not :)

There is NO need to write in italic anything just for the sake of having it
italic. If you want to make something presented in different way there
should be the reason for that.
Maybe there is a centuries long tradition to italicise species
names, bet these are SPECIES NAMES you have in italics. Basically, you
have an traditional way to render words having specific semantic
meaning (if it is in italics - it is specie's name).
Sure,  is wrong here, you do not want to emphasize it, but
 is OK.

Names of the magazines and newspapers are often written in italics too.
Let's suppose you have a page with text containing both. And then you
want an automatic extraction of the magazines mentioned and the
species mentioned from the text.  would not help you.
 and  would.
Not to mention XML.
BTW, how would this text look like in XML? Would you denote
specie by specie or by name.

The bottom line is this: if we want to put something in different
style we do that because of the semantics.

Regards,
Rimantas


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RE: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Peter Firminger]

Yeah, I think were probably done on this topic. The point is that the
scientific community's need for italicisation of species names IS a visual
one and it predates the web by centuries. A wishy-washy  or a span is
wrong in this case as the goal is to specifically italicise not emphasise or
otherwise separate from the flow of text.

If that means I code these pages in the perfectly acceptable HTML 4.01 for
the next x0 years, so be it. Let's not go down that road now.

I maintain the need for both the literal  (supported as long as I have
been writing HTML and that's 9 or 10 years now and LYNX was still fairly
popular if not dominant) and the semantic  (which we do in fact
generally use for this blowing away the argument but not the need and I'm
planning a serious discussion with Russ about changing back to what I now
believe to be the more correct  for this purpose).

P


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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Manuel González Noriega]

El vie, 07-05-2004 a las 17:37, Andy Budd escribió:
> Manuel González Noriega wrote:
> 
> > Well it's pretty tricky picking between two wrongs but i'd say wrong
> > named classes are much less serious than wrongfully marked elements.
> 
> Why is marking something up as italic wrong though? 

For one thing, it fixes the element to a medium (visual). If you
'span'n'style' it, you get back the freedom to export the meaning to
different mediums.

It's not wrong like it's a crime or unethical or something. It's just
that every example i've seen of 'a fair use of i' could/should be
reformulated.

In every example (foreign language, scientific names, etc..) when
someone tells me they want to mark something up as italic, i think 'no,
you want to mark it up as belonging to a certain class *and then* saying
that certain class should appear as italic.

I'm aware is a fairly obscure technical-philosophical issue and that one
man's 'true way' could be seen as 'markupbation' by others  :-)

It may go against 
> your belief of separating content from display, but it's a valid 
> (x)html element isn't it?

Of course! If it wouldn't validate that would be quite the end of the
discussion, wouldn't it? Still, a validator won't tell you if you're
using the right tag for the job. That's a job for collective
brainstormings like this.
> 
> Seems like using  or  are pretty much the same. 
> In fact you could argue that using  is better because it's a 
> standard html element (rather than a user defined class) and will thus 
> be understood by more systems.

The incorrect naming of the span class is what it's making it pretty
much the same. If the name of the class would describe the function
rather than the visual presentation, then there would be a clear
difference.

> I'd still argue that the purpose of the  element is to make 
> something italic, so that's exactly how it should be used (not saying 
> that's the only way to make something italicw). Using it to make 
> something bold however would be a shooting offence.

The main issue is choosing between considering  

- a first-class citizen of the (x)HTML world  
- a piece of junk that smells bad and doesn't really has the right to be
in a modern markup job, even though it hasn't been yet erased from the
specs. 
 
(just kidding, , i just think your time has passed. No offense)

> > Personally, i do it because i was told me girls dig semantic coding. 
> > You
> > mean they don't?
> 
> Some do. However some like it the old fashioned way.


Girls who mix content and presentation are a sure mess to get undressed.


BTW, sometimes i feel way beyond my written english skills, excuse me if
my sentences sound aadvark sometimes.

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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Andy Budd]

Manuel González Noriega wrote:

Well it's pretty tricky picking between two wrongs but i'd say wrong
named classes are much less serious than wrongfully marked elements.
Why is marking something up as italic wrong though? It may go against 
your belief of separating content from display, but it's a valid 
(x)html element isn't it?

Seems like using  or  are pretty much the same. 
In fact you could argue that using  is better because it's a 
standard html element (rather than a user defined class) and will thus 
be understood by more systems.

Are you saying that we are all guilty of laziness once or twice in a
while and that we don't follow good practices all of the time? Boy, i'm
glad  i'm not the only one ;) Still, i don't think that's quite the 
same
than writing a post about using an element in a way that's not the way
it should be used.
I'd still argue that the purpose of the  element is to make 
something italic, so that's exactly how it should be used (not saying 
that's the only way to make something italicw). Using it to make 
something bold however would be a shooting offence.

Personally, i do it because i was told me girls dig semantic coding. 
You
mean they don't?
Some do. However some like it the old fashioned way.

Andy Budd

http://www.message.uk.com/

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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Tonico Strasser]

Patrick Griffiths wrote:
 certainly isn't the way to go though with either argument - language
is supposed to be independent of presentation, be it visual or aural or
whatever.
HTML 3.2 was not supposed to be independent [1], XHTML 2 should be 
independent and HTML4.1/XHMTL 1 is in between, I think.

What if the biologists that be decided to change the way this was
normally presented? What if it was deemed to be better to be in bold
rather than italics? Your HTML would then be semantically incorrect.
Hypothetical, but logical.
I prefer to think practical :)
I think it's right to completely separate meaning and presentation and I
think it's right to deprecate i.
Until it's not deprecated you can use it as a schortcut for zZz. (Sure, only if you don't want to 
change the style later.)

XHTML 2 will not be backwards compatible anyway.
[1] 
Tonico
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Tonico Strasser ?:-)
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Contact_Tonico at Yahoo dot de
Check out http://www.WebProducer.at
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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Kristof Neirynck]

Manuel González Noriega wrote:
i want to comment on Matthew Thomas' 'When semantic markup goes bad'
http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/05/02/b-and-i
The way i see it, if you need an new html element that is not available,
you use 'span+appropiate identifier' 
[snip]
The article isn't about "keep using b and i".
It's about using the right tag for the job.
He speaks about these tags too:
* cite,
* dfn,
* samp,
* var.
Those are sometimes forgotten.
I sympathize with Matthews view.
b and i have their place.
IMHO I don't see what would be wrong with:
R2
If and only if all these are true:
* You think a "vector" is something special;
* There is no vector-tag;
* Vectors are usually written in bold.
Your stylesheet doesn't change:
.vector{
  font-weight: bold;
}
And if the b tag is deprecated you just use a regular expression to 
change each b-tag to a span tag.

Remember that stylesheets add something for those browsers that support 
them. You should write your (x)html in such a way that the stylesheet 
isn't needed to understand the content.

All of the above is IMHO.
--
Kristof
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RE: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Iain Gardiner]

Hi guys, my first post,  :>

Patrick, while I largely agree with the whole separating content from
presentation argument (I try as best I can to adhere to XHTML 1.1 whenever I
can) I do find the case for the  tag compelling. Mainly this is because
it all comes down to the fact that you are simply marking up a section of
text as being italicised.  It's far better than writing out something like
 as one would have done in the bad, bad, BAD old days,
and to my mind it's more desirable than writing  which takes up 28 more characters than it needs to.
(X)HTML is a *markup* language so marking it up as italicised is fulfilling
the function of that language.  Just my two cents.

I thankee,

Iain

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Patrick Griffiths
Sent: 06 May 2004 18:03
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really
bad


> Absolutely! In natural science (specifically speaking about species
names
> here) Italics are the way to present the scientific name (genus
species pair
> or "senior synonym"  like Thorunna australis or even just the
species
> or shorthand variations), not "emphasis". I think there is a good
argument
> for using  here as it isn't ambiguous in any way that I want
italics. In
> this case  is just semantically wrong and  simply should not be 
> deprecated.

Hmm. This is a difficult one. I think it could be argued that this is
emphasis. In this case you are emphasising the species by displaying it in
italics.

 certainly isn't the way to go though with either argument - language is
supposed to be independent of presentation, be it visual or aural or
whatever.

What if the biologists that be decided to change the way this was normally
presented? What if it was deemed to be better to be in bold rather than
italics? Your HTML would then be semantically incorrect. Hypothetical, but
logical.

I think it's right to completely separate meaning and presentation and I
think it's right to deprecate i.



Patrick Griffiths (PTG)
 http://www.htmldog.com/ptg/
 http://www.htmldog.com


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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Patrick Griffiths]

> Absolutely! In natural science (specifically speaking about species
names
> here) Italics are the way to present the scientific name (genus
species pair
> or "senior synonym"  like Thorunna australis or even just the
species
> or shorthand variations), not "emphasis". I think there is a good
argument
> for using  here as it isn't ambiguous in any way that I want
italics. In
> this case  is just semantically wrong and  simply should not be
> deprecated.

Hmm. This is a difficult one. I think it could be argued that this is
emphasis. In this case you are emphasising the species by displaying it
in italics.

 certainly isn't the way to go though with either argument - language
is supposed to be independent of presentation, be it visual or aural or
whatever.

What if the biologists that be decided to change the way this was
normally presented? What if it was deemed to be better to be in bold
rather than italics? Your HTML would then be semantically incorrect.
Hypothetical, but logical.

I think it's right to completely separate meaning and presentation and I
think it's right to deprecate i.



Patrick Griffiths (PTG)
 http://www.htmldog.com/ptg/
 http://www.htmldog.com


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RE: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Manuel González Noriega]

El jue, 06-05-2004 a las 18:08, Peter Firminger escribió:
> > I'm sure lot's of people probably use  when they aren't really
> > emphasising something, but simply wanting to make something italic.
> 
> Absolutely! In natural science (specifically speaking about species names
> here) Italics are the way to present the scientific name (genus species pair
> or "senior synonym"  like Thorunna australis or even just the species
> or shorthand variations), not "emphasis". I think there is a good argument
> for using  here as it isn't ambiguous in any way that I want italics. In
> this case  is just semantically wrong and  simply should not be
> deprecated.
> 

I'm sure there are times when i is the right element to use, but your
example is not one :)

If the markup means 'look, this is a genus species pair', please make it
tell so:

1) Thorunna Australis
2) Thorunna Australis
3) Thorunna Australis


1) is not available to current browsers without involving extra
technology 
2) is nice, clean and optimal in the current day and time.
3) is pretty useless

> 
> But in most cases we certainly don't need this as we are marking up text for
> the sake of displaying text, not extraction for any other reason by any
> other agent. The extra bytes are a total waste of bandwidth and when you get
> to heavily used repositories of text-based factsheets like
> http://amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/specfam.htm or
> http://seaslugforum.net/species.htm it can make quite a difference in speed
> and money.

First, i don't think we should discuss specific cases. If you need to
save bandwith by using i instead of span.class, it's entirely up you of
course. We're talking general principles/best practices

I don't think (given that we are using clean, well marked code) that
there's a clear and present global need for saving bandwith by switching
from span.class

 
>- 
Manuel trabaja para Simplelógica, construcción web
(+34) 985 22 12 65 http://simplelogica.net 

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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Manuel González Noriega]

El jue, 06-05-2004 a las 17:30, Andy Budd escribió:
> I think the article seems reasonable.

I do not but that's a matter of opinion of course :)

> Some people would argue that what you should do is wrap the element in 
> a span, create a class and then style the class in the stylesheets. 
> This is reasonable if the class has some meaning (e.g. author). However 
> most people would just create a class called italic. By doing this, you 
> are no longer really separating presentation from structure, so why not 
> use ?

Well it's pretty tricky picking between two wrongs but i'd say wrong
named classes are much less serious than wrongfully marked elements. 


> I think it's very good practice to code semantically. However I often 
> find myself creating a class solely to position an element (float it 
> left lest say). I usually try to give the element some semantic meaning 
> (like col1) however it's always tempting to simply go for the easy 
> option of floatLeft.

Are you saying that we are all guilty of laziness once or twice in a
while and that we don't follow good practices all of the time? Boy, i'm
glad  i'm not the only one ;) Still, i don't think that's quite the same
than writing a post about using an element in a way that's not the way
it should be used.
 
> Whereas I can see a good reason to use semantic HTML, is there really 
> much point in worrying if your ID's/classes have semantic meaning. 
> Becasue they are user defined, there probably is never going to be a 
> time when that information will be used by another machine.
> 

Personally, i do it because i was told me girls dig semantic coding. You
mean they don't?

Seriously, the issue of relevant class/ID naming is interesting and
important but Matthew proposes a whole different (and IMHO wrong) thing



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RE: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Peter Firminger]

> I'm sure lot's of people probably use  when they aren't really
> emphasising something, but simply wanting to make something italic.

Absolutely! In natural science (specifically speaking about species names
here) Italics are the way to present the scientific name (genus species pair
or "senior synonym"  like Thorunna australis or even just the species
or shorthand variations), not "emphasis". I think there is a good argument
for using  here as it isn't ambiguous in any way that I want italics. In
this case  is just semantically wrong and  simply should not be
deprecated.

There may be an argument for an xml structure here though:


Thorunna
australis


But in most cases we certainly don't need this as we are marking up text for
the sake of displaying text, not extraction for any other reason by any
other agent. The extra bytes are a total waste of bandwidth and when you get
to heavily used repositories of text-based factsheets like
http://amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/specfam.htm or
http://seaslugforum.net/species.htm it can make quite a difference in speed
and money.

A random example http://seaslugforum.net/thoraust.htm shows how many times
species names can appear in a fact sheet (this is one of the shorter ones
and yes we are currently rebuilding this overgrown and complex data-driven
site so no comments please) and it also shows the scientific requirement for
italics in citations, but that's another argument entirely.

P


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RE: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[P.H.Lauke]

> -Original Message-
> From: Andy Budd
[snip]
> Whereas I can see a good reason to use semantic HTML, is there really 
> much point in worrying if your ID's/classes have semantic meaning. 
> Becasue they are user defined, there probably is never going to be a 
> time when that information will be used by another machine.


I haven't read the article in question yet, but this just caught my eye...
A fair point, but in my mind it makes sense to still keep IDs/classes semantic,
mainly for your own sake as a developer, and to make things easier to maintain
in future.
An example: when I first started in this job, I went through all the code
left by my predecessor. She had obviously dabbled with CSS, but obviously not
understood the idea of separation of content and presentation at all, leading to
wonderful things like

blah

with

.redlink { color: red; }

This was all fine and dandy...until the corporate identity guidelines changed and
all links needed to be make green instead of red. As a quick fix, I did

.redlink { color: green; }

Great...so now I had a class "redlink" making things green. Intuitive...
I ended up simplifying the entire CSS anyway, removing the need for any such classes
in most cases, but if I hadn't, I would have had to go through the entire site and
find/replace redlink with greenlink or something as well...

Same with things like "floatLeft"...what if you later decide that you don't want
to float it at all? Heck, even "col1" does imply that it's one of many columns...what 
if
you later redo the whole CSS and the whole block is on its own, i.e. not a column 
anymore?

As always, every web developer needs to get a clear idea of how far down the 
"eradication
of presentational markup and IDs/classnames" they want to go. Often I do make hard and 
fast
calls about certain class names, for instance, when I know that a page is only going 
to be
needed for a few months or something. For longer term pages and site sections, I try a 
bit
harder to keep the content as presentation-agnostic as possible, classnames and all...

My GBP0.02 anyway,

Patrick
p.s.: and now I'll go off and read the article, to see if I'm now wildly off topic

Patrick H. Lauke
Webmaster / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk
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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Andy Budd]

I think the article seems reasonable.
I'm sure lot's of people probably use  when they aren't really 
emphasising something, but simply wanting to make something italic.

Some people would argue that what you should do is wrap the element in 
a span, create a class and then style the class in the stylesheets. 
This is reasonable if the class has some meaning (e.g. author). However 
most people would just create a class called italic. By doing this, you 
are no longer really separating presentation from structure, so why not 
use ?

I think it's very good practice to code semantically. However I often 
find myself creating a class solely to position an element (float it 
left lest say). I usually try to give the element some semantic meaning 
(like col1) however it's always tempting to simply go for the easy 
option of floatLeft.

Whereas I can see a good reason to use semantic HTML, is there really 
much point in worrying if your ID's/classes have semantic meaning. 
Becasue they are user defined, there probably is never going to be a 
time when that information will be used by another machine.


Hi,
i want to comment on Matthew Thomas' 'When semantic markup goes bad'
http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/05/02/b-and-i
Basically, i think his main thesis is plain wrong
I think Matthew is pointing out that many people are using (or 
suggesting)  where  (or a styled ) would be better. 
He doesn't say that you must use  but explains why this element is 
in the specs.

Strictly spoken,  is purely presentational and should not replace 
an apropriate semantic tag (e.g. a headline), OTOH foo is a lot of code compared to bar. Both 
elements are semantically neutral.
Andy Budd
http://www.message.uk.com/
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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Manuel González Noriega]

El jue, 06-05-2004 a las 15:58, Tonico Strasser escribió:

> 
> I think Matthew is pointing out that many people are using (or 
> suggesting)  where  (or a styled ) would be better. He 
> doesn't say that you must use  but explains why this element is in 
> the specs.

I think he's on with some kind of fallacy where if you agree that if you
agree that

1) strong and em generally supercede b and i

2) strong and em are used incorrectly sometimes 


(we're all ok with the argument to this point, methinks, but it's so
obvious it's pretty useless, everything is used incorrectly sometimes) 

then you must agree that

3) wherever strong and em are used incorrectly, b and i are to be used.


It's proposition 3) i have issues with. But it could be me having a bad
hair day ;)

OTOH  class="bold">foo is a lot of code compared to bar.

That's not fair, you are comparing bar to foo and everybody prefers a
bar over almost anything :D


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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Andrew Krespanis]

Manuel:
I'm glad you've raised this as I was of a very similar mind when I read the 
article. The examples you have provided, IMO, are generally a better and 
"safer" choice.
After all,  and  got the chop in HTML 4.0 (source: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/changes.html#h-A.3.1.2) so who's to 
say the same won't (or shouldn't) happen to  and 
It feels like just a matter of time...
Also, your alternate language example is bang on. That is one of the primary 
uses of lang, or xml:lang, or whatever. While the intentions of the article 
are good, the recommendations come off as a little backwards to me.

Andrew Krespanis.
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Re: [WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Tonico Strasser]

Manuel GonzÃlez Noriega wrote:
Hi,
i want to comment on Matthew Thomas' 'When semantic markup goes bad'
http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/05/02/b-and-i
Basically, i think his main thesis is plain wrong

These arenât exhaustive lists, but as you can see, some reasons for
using bold and italics donât have their own semantic HTML elements. This
is why b and i exist
No, that's not why b and i exist. That's why span exists. 

The way i see it, if you need an new html element that is not available,
you use 'span+appropiate identifier' 

If you need a  element, you compensate for the lack of it with
R2 and then style it to bold. 

If you want to quote something on a foreign language and want it to
appear in italics, you don't (as MPT proposes) mark it up as mi mama
me mima, you mark it up with mi mama
me mima and then style it to your liking
If you have some time to read his post and comment on it, i'd really
appreciate it :-)
I think Matthew is pointing out that many people are using (or 
suggesting)  where  (or a styled ) would be better. He 
doesn't say that you must use  but explains why this element is in 
the specs.

Strictly spoken,  is purely presentational and should not replace an 
apropriate semantic tag (e.g. a headline), OTOH foo is a lot of code compared to bar. Both 
elements are semantically neutral.

Tonico
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Tonico Strasser ?:-)
http://Tonico.FreeZope.org
Contact_Tonico at Yahoo dot de
Check out http://www.WebProducer.at
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[WSG] When the mix of visual appearance and meaning goes really bad

[Manuel González Noriega]

Hi,

i want to comment on Matthew Thomas' 'When semantic markup goes bad'
http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/05/02/b-and-i

Basically, i think his main thesis is plain wrong


These aren’t exhaustive lists, but as you can see, some reasons for
using bold and italics don’t have their own semantic HTML elements. This
is why b and i exist

No, that's not why b and i exist. That's why span exists. 

The way i see it, if you need an new html element that is not available,
you use 'span+appropiate identifier' 

If you need a  element, you compensate for the lack of it with
R2 and then style it to bold. 

If you want to quote something on a foreign language and want it to
appear in italics, you don't (as MPT proposes) mark it up as mi mama
me mima, you mark it up with mi mama
me mima and then style it to your liking


If you have some time to read his post and comment on it, i'd really
appreciate it :-)



-- 
Manuel trabaja para Simplelógica, construcción web
(+34) 985 22 12 65 http://simplelogica.net 

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