Eugene T.S. Wong wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 04:39:29 -0800, Matthew Paul Thomas
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If authors -- or specifications -- try too hard to use a semantic
element, or to force other people to use it, it will be misused so
much that UAs can no longer trust the element to have any particular
meaning, so it will become de facto presentational.
Yes! That is what I was trying to say earlier. The best case examples
are inline strings which are typically italicized and bolded, but aren't
being emphasized. The problem with using <EM> and <STRONG> in those
situations is that these 2 elements have been stretched to include more
than just emphasis.
Accepting mpt's argument for a moment, what is the semantic equivalent
of <center> or <big>? Even if we took the argument to your extreme and
shadowed every semantic element with a meaningless element with the same
default presentation in some reference graphical browser, there's no
place for <center>. I suppose <big> is a bit like <h1> but surely we
could just reintroduce <font> and be done with it? But you can't be
suggesting that sites which employ the <font> tag are superior to ones
that use CSS? I mean, they load slower, usually use <font> tags instead
of headings, which reduces the readability and accessibility of the page
and generally have a negative impact.
Whilst it is not implausible that a few select presentational elements
may improve the overall correct use of meaningful elements on the web,
history suggests that providing a raft of graphical presentational
elements at the markup-language level encourages the use of poor-quality
markup.
--
"It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people
believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly
that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise."
-- http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
