[whatwg] The div element

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Nicholas Zakas <nicholas.zakas at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> I don't think it's as clear as you make it out to be. A "section" and a
> "division". I hate to consult a dictionary on this, but one definition for
> "section" is "subdivision". The naming alone does not make it clear what the
> difference is. The <nav/>, <header/>, and <footer/> elements are pretty
> clear as to their usage.
>
Some additional language might be good for clarifying.  Optionally, got any
better suggestions for the element's name?


>
> Anne mentioned that <section/> interacts with <h1/>-<h6/>...how so?
>
In HTML5, the <hx> hierarchy is explicitly ignored.  Instead, they're all
treated the same.  The actual heading level is determined by <section>
nesting.

>
> If <section/> is something people believe in, then there really has to be
> more definition around it and its difference with <div/>. I know part of
> HTML 5 is to mitigate the div-itis problem, but without clearer distinctions
> you'll just end up with a mishmash of <section/> and <div/> being used
> interchangeably.
>
Okay, let's make sure it's clear.  <section> has a pretty anemic description
in the spec currently.

To the best of my knowledge, the basic use case of <section> is dividing up
related content within an <article>.  This is pretty easy to use correctly.

Question to others:  I think it is somewhat unclear what exactly the correct
semantics are for <section> when it is encountered outside of an <article>.
Since <section> is the most generic of the sectioning tags, there is a
definite risk of it falling into the same hole that <div> is in.  Where
exactly should <section> be used when outside of an article, and when should
we just default to the <div>?

~TJ
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/attachments/20080229/532e6866/attachment-0001.htm>