[whatwg] <CENTER>, <MENU>, <DIR>, <NL>

[Eugene T.S. Wong]

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:21:40 -0800, Anne van Kesteren  
<fora at annevankesteren.nl> wrote:

> Quoting "Eugene T.S. Wong" <lists.eugenetswong at gmail.com>:
>>>> <DIV> is  no more semantic that <I>, <B>, or <CENTER>, yet they
>>>> have their uses.
>> <snip>
>
> You snipped the part about <div> not being in the proposal for HTML5  
> which is
> pretty important imho.

I didn't realize that. I must have skimmed through pretty quickly. I  
always assumed that <DIV> would be included, despite what everybody meant  
to say.

>>> What would its semantics be as opposed to <div>? Do you have a  
>>> concrete  proposal
>>> as how <center> would work?
>>
>> I don't think that it is semantic at all.
>
> That in itself is a reason not to include it.

I don't think that we can have a purely semantic markup language. If we  
can't then there is no harm in suggesting non-semantic elements.

>> It's just that sometimes it  would save us some hassles of having to  
>> type:
>>
>> <style>
>> #intro{text-align:center}
>> </style>
>>
>> <div id="center">blah blah blah</div>
>
> <center> does _very_ different things from what you just described.

I think that that was a typo. I meant:

<style>
#intro{text-align:center}
</style>

<div id="intro">blah blah blah</div>

Hopefully I typed what I meant this time. What different things were you  
referring to?

>> <DIR> could be used for listing files. If you want to print out the  
>> files  of a directory and its subdirectories, then you could do that  
>> with <DIR>.
>
> Well yeah, and what if I want to list vegetables? I think the element is  
> to
> specific and not really that useful.

There is no vegetable list, but there is <DIR>, and I figure that as long  
as it's there, we should leave it as an option. We don't have to create a  
element for every single concept, but I don't think that we should get rid  
of any, as long as they are there and are properly defined.

I seem to get the impression that my suggestions are being categorized as  
either "too specific" and "not semantic enough". It seems that I need to  
improve my people skills.

> You were talking about consistency with XHTML. Yet there has been no
> recommendation or standard (whatever you prefer) that contains such an  
> element so the argument is bogus.

Doesn't this count for something?
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:1ZSEeqx7LUwJ:www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-xhtml2-20020805/mod-list.html+html+nl+element&hl=en&client=opera

The first Google search that I did was for "html nl element", and the  
result was on the first page.

-- 
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong