[whatwg] additional empty elements

[Dan Dorman]

On 5/1/07, Brenton Strine <Brenton.Strine at citrix.com> wrote:
> If all HTML tags
> imply some meaning, then you are advocating the
> elimination of presentation, not it's separation.

An HTML document ought to make semantic sense, without regard to
presentational information.  The very definition of the separation of
presentation from content is that the content should be authored
without regard to how it will appear.  That's not to say presentation
is being eliminated, however; presentation simply should not be a
consideration in how the content is authored.  Ideally, anyway.

> If there weren't any CSS hooks, wouldn't people just
> (incorrectly) use other tags, like <h1>? I think that CSS
> and HTML are unbreakably connected.

Indeed, one could say CSS is fundamentally dependent on HTML; the
reverse is not true.  Imagine a new technology came along to make HTML
pretty:  wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to rewrite the HTML to
service this new technology?

As to folks using incorrect tags, well, what you're proposing isn't
going to fix that.

I think the supposition that multiple class names are confusing is
flawed.  What's wrong with saying <div class="redtext indentmore">
(besides the fact that you'd want more useful, informative class names
than "redtext" and "indentmore")?  By looking at it, someone could
readily tell it's got the properties of both "redtext" and
"indentmore".  In my estimation, being able to combine classes is one
of the more powerful aspects of CSS.

Dan Dorman