[whatwg] ---

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Nov 6, 2008, at 12:32 AM, Eduard Pascual wrote:
> ...
> Initially, HTML was entirely structural: no presentation, and no
> semantics. Just paragraphs, headings, anchors, and few other things.
> ...

The earliest surviving HTML draft from 1992 includes the <PLAINTEXT>  
and <LISTING> elements, both entirely presentational.  
<http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/ 
Tags.html>

HTML+ in 1993 went further: "In many cases it is convenient to indicate  
directly how the text is to be rendered, e.g. as italic, bold,  
underline or strike-through".  
<http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/HTMLPlus/htmlplus_16.html> Those  
presentational elements continued into HTML 2.0.

HTML has always been a dance between structure and presentation. Too  
structural, and humans won't understand it; too presentational, and  
computers won't understand it.

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/


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