[whatwg] Thoughts on HTML 5

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 13 May 2008, Paweł Stradomski wrote:
> W liście Ian Hickson z dnia wtorek 13 maja 2008:
> > >     * I understand the concept of the <dialog/> element but it's named
> > > completely wrong. The point is to markup a conversation between two or
> > > more parties. The problem is that the word "dialog", when in used in
> > > user interfaces, refers to small windows that can be interacted with.
> > > When I first read about this element, I assumed it was a way to indicate
> > > that part of the page is a dialog window outside of the normal flow of
> > > the document (which I thought was cool). After reading the rest, I was
> > > disappointed to find out that wasn't the intent. I'd rename this element
> > > as <conversation/> or <discussion/> to avoid such misunderstandings.
> >
> > I agree that the name is suboptimal but those names are worse (they're 
> > too long, and they're overly specific). I'm not sure what to do about 
> > this.
> 
> Perhaps <talk> ? Short and simple, although not exactly equal in meaning 
> to <dialog>.

That's probably the best suggestion so far, but I'm still not convinced 
it's really much better than <dialog>. I think it has at least as many 
other interpretations (e.g. what we call a "talk" over here is really a 
slide show).

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'