[whatwg] wrapper element

Tab Atkins Jr. jackalmage at gmail.com
Mon Feb 28 10:56:27 PST 2011


On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:46 AM, usuario <soyhobo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> <div> carries no semantic meaning.  If you are using it for such, the
>> semantic is purely internal to your application, and thus doesn't
>> carry the common meaning of "semantics" as used on the web.
>

> We have no problems with <div> definition. But i think you are not right in
> your statement.
> Answer this, Are wrappers purely internal to my(of mine) application? that's
> a capitalized lie, just think on it. Most applications use a wrapper-like
> div. You had, and i don't know you.
>
> We have to start deciding what do we want from html5, at what degree do we
> want a more semantic web? why just <header>, why just <footer>.
>
> I can assure you the world was fine with <div id="header">, but so, why
> <header> was created for? It was created because being so widely used,
> somebody believed it was more semantic to convert it into an element.

Yes, we found a small set of wrappers which were so ubiquitous that it
was worthwhile promoting them from a private semantic (only the page
itself knows what it's talking about) to a public semantic (everyone
knows what a <header> or <section> is).

I believe you're arguing that the "wrapper" semantic, being similarly
ubiquitous, thus needs its own new element as well.  What you're
missing is that the "wrapper" semantic is precisely what <div> already
expresses.


>> <div> is the wrapper element.  That's its entire purpose for living.  ^_^
>
> <div> was not creating for wrapping things, but for contain them. When you
> wrap something, you are giving it a different implicit meaning to that
> wrapper div.

I don't understand the difference between "wrapping" and "containing" something.

~TJ



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