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From: Jón Fairbairn on 9 Sep 2006 11:35 "Michael Bulatovich" <Please(a)dont.try> writes: > Thanks Mr. Shagnasty, Jukka, and others. I think you've covered it. > > The text to which I referred could be within <body> tags, but not otherwise > contained by what I would recognize as typical selectors for text (h#, p, > blockquote, etc.) If I understand correctly, it sounds like this sort of > thing could be influenced by using the body as selector. But what /is/ it? I'm finding it hard to come to terms with the idea of text that belongs to no semantic category. -- Jón Fairbairn Jon.Fairbairn(a)cl.cam.ac.uk
From: Jukka K. Korpela on 9 Sep 2006 12:18 Spartanicus <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> scripsit: >> If you have, say, a collection of miscellaneous notes at the bottom >> of a page - the typical context of a copyright notice -, such >> rendering would look rather foolish. > > I'm having difficulty imagining what content and structure you are > alluding to, please provide an example. A typical example would be http://www.canon.com which has the short copyright notice as the last item on the page, right after a horizontal line. There's little reason for any substantial margin before it. > If not itself marked up as a paragraph, the copyright text could > render flush to the preceding paragraph No it wouldn't, since paragraphs have by default both a top margin and a bottom margin, in popular browsers. >> That's just because you _don't_ use paragraph markup semantically. > > Correct, I use markup functionally Originally, you said that we should use semantic markup for everything. Now you are saying that you don't do that yourself. Actually you have now admitted that you advocate the use of semantic markup (i.e., markup that has defined semantics) _against_ its defined semantics. Using markup "functionally" is a new phrase, but it seems to mean the same as the old procedural markup. > The idea that paragraph markup should not be used for short texts > assumes that a clear distinction can be made between the two, No it doesn't. It just assumes that you know what a paragraph is and care about semantic markup. Similarly, there might not always be a rigorous border between a heading and a short intermittent text. Yet you shouldn't use heading markup just to get larger or smaller (!) font or bolding or margins. You are supposed to use logical, semantic markup as far as possible and to use CSS to suggest rendering features, as desired, both for semantic and non-semantic elements. If you wish to use procedural markup, nobody can prevent you, but it is intellectually dishonest to blow horns and represent yourself as a defender of semantic markup. -- Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Gus Richter on 9 Sep 2006 15:02 Jón Fairbairn wrote: > "Michael Bulatovich" <Please(a)dont.try> writes: > >> Thanks Mr. Shagnasty, Jukka, and others. I think you've covered it. >> >> The text to which I referred could be within <body> tags, but not otherwise >> contained by what I would recognize as typical selectors for text (h#, p, >> blockquote, etc.) If I understand correctly, it sounds like this sort of >> thing could be influenced by using the body as selector. > > But what /is/ it? I'm finding it hard to come to terms with > the idea of text that belongs to no semantic category. Anonymous Text / Anonymous Box <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visuren.html#anonymous-block-level> -- Gus
From: Spartanicus on 9 Sep 2006 15:08 "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela(a)cs.tut.fi> wrote: >>> If you have, say, a collection of miscellaneous notes at the bottom >>> of a page - the typical context of a copyright notice -, such >>> rendering would look rather foolish. >> >> I'm having difficulty imagining what content and structure you are >> alluding to, please provide an example. > >A typical example would be http://www.canon.com which has the short >copyright notice as the last item on the page, right after a horizontal >line. There's little reason for any substantial margin before it. I see nothing there that resembles what you wrote. I thought we were discussing rendering sans CSS, I fail to see how a reference to a page that uses a CSS generated coloured block with a bottom border to distinguish it from the copyright line is relevant to that discussion. >> If not itself marked up as a paragraph, the copyright text could >> render flush to the preceding paragraph > >No it wouldn't, since paragraphs have by default both a top margin and a >bottom margin, in popular browsers. In at least one browser its different, and there is nothing wrong with it's default rendering. It is always a bad idea to rely on the (in this case only possible) properties of an adjacent element to create functionality that should be provided by the content's own markup. >>> That's just because you _don't_ use paragraph markup semantically. >> >> Correct, I use markup functionally > >Originally, you said that we should use semantic markup for everything. Now >you are saying that you don't do that yourself. I advocate always using semantic markup elements to mark up text and my choice of what element to use is governed by real world functionality rather than using elements that provide no functionality such as div and span. >Actually you have now >admitted that you advocate the use of semantic markup (i.e., markup that has >defined semantics) _against_ its defined semantics. Indeed. Loading a language with various elements to markup slightly different forms of text is only justified if it can be argued that there is a functional need for using different text markup elements. No such case can be made for short text and paragraphs, which is why I consider the <p> element as a generic markup element for text (providing that no other better suited existing element should be used, <li>, <hx> etc.). A dogmatic insistence on using the <p> element only for paragraphs whilst advocating that text which doesn't classify as a paragraph should be marked up with a non structural and non semantic element like <div> despite the obvious loss of functionality makes no sense. Using paragraph markup for short text on the other hand has no drawbacks other than that it seems to irritate your sense of semantic purity. Markup is there to provide a function, it's not a dogma that should be strictly adhered to when the function markup is meant to provide is lost. >Using markup "functionally" is a new phrase, but it seems to mean the same >as the old procedural markup. I'm not familiar with the phrase "procedural markup". Listed in my dictionary definition is "to advance to a higher degree (as in proceed MA) or more developed state", which describes what functional markup can achieve over strict semantic markup quite nicely IMO. >> The idea that paragraph markup should not be used for short texts >> assumes that a clear distinction can be made between the two, > >No it doesn't. It just assumes that you know what a paragraph is The resources that I have seen on the definition of what constitutes a paragraph are all fairly vague, I have found no justification for what I think is your definition of what constitutes a paragraph. >and care about semantic markup. Only if it serves a purpose, not merely for the sake of it. Your objection is dogmatic with no case being made for the harm done by what I advocate, whilst being blind to the harm done by using <div>s. >Similarly, there might not always be a rigorous >border between a heading and a short intermittent text. I'm again struggling to picture what you mean by that, example please. -- Spartanicus
From: Jukka K. Korpela on 9 Sep 2006 15:58
Spartanicus <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> scripsit: > "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela(a)cs.tut.fi> wrote: > >>>> If you have, say, a collection of miscellaneous notes at the bottom >>>> of a page - the typical context of a copyright notice -, such >>>> rendering would look rather foolish. >>> >>> I'm having difficulty imagining what content and structure you are >>> alluding to, please provide an example. >> >> A typical example would be http://www.canon.com which has the short >> copyright notice as the last item on the page, right after a >> horizontal line. There's little reason for any substantial margin >> before it. > > I see nothing there that resembles what you wrote. I thought we were > discussing rendering sans CSS, No, you asked about content and structure. The essential point is that a copyright notice typically appears alone at the end of a page, often preceded by a horizontal rule that acts as a divider. If you don't want to count on CSS in producing the rule, you can use <hr>. > It is always a bad idea to rely on the (in this case only possible) > properties of an adjacent element to create functionality that should > be provided by the content's own markup. Functionality? You mean rendering, right? And adjacent vertical margins are not a casual phenomenon in CSS: they are _supposed to_ be considered together. > I advocate always using semantic markup elements to mark up text Apparently that means "semantics" that consists of what you think about rendering: > and my choice of what element to use is governed by real world > functionality rather than using elements that provide no > functionality such as div and span. > >> Actually you have now >> admitted that you advocate the use of semantic markup (i.e., markup >> that has defined semantics) _against_ its defined semantics. > > Indeed. OK, I guess we can stop here. You simply use the word "semantic" in a private meaning that differs from its meaning in normal English - in a rather striking way. Your "semantic" markup looks suspiciously like procedural markup. > I'm not familiar with the phrase "procedural markup". Try reading the SGML Handbook. :-) -- Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ |