On Jan 8, 2008, at 3:30 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
Why would we need to group containers together if it is not for
styling purpose?
Because we're saying that anything in the container belongs
together (thematically, content-wise, logically, etc).
On Jan 8, 2008, at 7:56 PM, Thierry Koblentz wrote:
Does it prove that DIVs carry more semantics?
I'm wondering if the pursuit of semantics might sometimes be taken to
unreasonable extremes?
Must everything that is contained in the marked-up document contain
some semantic value? Must anything that does not have an inherent
semantic value be excluded? Surely not.
If an element is semantically neutral (as DIV) then it necessarily
has no impact on the semantic value of the content contained within.
My understanding is that the whole argument against using tables for
structure is that that use distorts the semantics of the table's
content.
I hope this analogy is not too far-fetched, but I don't think anyone
would argue that a page or a column is not a semantically neutral
container of content in a book, still less that pages should be
dispensed with as they don't have any semantic value! Anyone (except
perhaps the occasional Kerouac purist...) want to go back to reading
scrolls? Parts, chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses
and individual words (and let's remember that the introduction of the
humble space between words was once a revolutionary innovation), even
the use of different fonts to represent different voices, are all
divisions of content that add something semantically. But the
individual page or column is entirely neutral - different editions of
a book may have very different page numbers, but it's generally
agreed that they are in fact the same book. Also, many books contain
empty pages by necessity as part of the binding process - it's
laughable to imagine a movement calling for empty pages to be
excluded on the grounds that they don't have any meaning. So perhaps
it's not too unreasonable to carry the analogy forward and suggest
that "book" is equivalent to "website", "part" is equivalent to "site
area", "chapter" is equivalent to "web page" and "page" or "column"
is equivalent to "DIV"? Which would allow for the continued use of P,
OL/UL, DL, and the dread TABLE (let's not bring I/EM and B/STRONG
into it!) to support their intended semantic roles.
None of which, by the way, Thierry, is intended to detract from the
skill and ingenuity of your IMPRESSIVE demonstration.
Andrew
http://www.andrewmaben.net
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"In a well designed user interface, the user should not need
instructions."
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