Ok, one last try. My thoughts have little to do with semantics.
Semantics are based on standards and languages, and therefore if HTML
were dropped, something would HAVE to be introduced to replace it.
However, like the hCard format, trying to break the HTML structure to
add semantics to an address on a website seems silly, why not define
a new, standard, Address DTD. This way any professional will be able
to look up the standard for any data-type he wants. If a data-type
has not been defined publicly, then his being forced to use a bunch
of meaningless tags seems silly.
Trying to get amateurs to create semantic based sites is largely
futile, whatever standards you use, in whatever industry. In these
situations, to a UA, there is no difference between:
<div class="heading">Page title</div>
<div class="asa">some text</div>
<div class="para"><span class="firstword">The</span>quick brown</div>
and
<heading>Page title</heading>
<asa>some text</ada>
<para><firstword>The</firstword>quick brown</para>
Except that it is easier for humans to understand. This IS important
because the easier markup is to understand, the easier it is to
maintain and the more likely it is to be standards-compliant.
HTML is primarily a text document markup language, a tiny subset of
the total information types available on the internet, with extra
bits added on. Why does all information have to be presented in this
format? Create a new Document DTD, a webpage DTD with things like
Title and meta-tag included and then people who don't adhere to these
new standards will find that their sites, by default, don't get
listed in search engines. Or that browser functionality (like linking
addresses to a user's address book) don't work. This will force them
to be standards compliant.
Stephen
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