[whatwg] Interpretation issue: can <section> be used for "extended paragraphs"?

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:04 AM, Markus Ernst <derernst at gmx.ch> wrote:
> Am 14.06.2011 09:32 schrieb Ian Hickson:
>> On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Markus Ernst wrote:
>>> Consider this markup of Andy's use case:
>>>
>>> <p>I always like to eat these cheeses:
>>> <il>
>>>  <ili>Cheddar</ili>,
>>>  <ili>Stilton</ili>, and
>>>  <ili>Red Lester</ili>,
>>> </il>
>>> but I enjoy them most with one of these biscuits:
>>> <il>
>>>  <ili>wheat crackers</ili>,
>>>  <ili>rye crackers</ili>,
>>>  <ili>digestives</ili>,
>>> </il>
>>> and some chutney.</p>
>>>
>>> <il>  stands for "inline list",<ili>  for "inline list item" (it's a pity
>>> we can't reuse<li>  for BC reasons). Conforming UAs would be required to
>>> ignore any content in an<il>  element, except it is in an<ili>  element.
>>> Like that, the above example would be perfectly readable in legacy UAs,
>>> but make sense in HTML5-capable UAs.
>>>
>>> It would even be easy to stlye the output for legacy UAs supporting
>>> display:list-item, as this example illustrates:
>>> http://www.markusernst.ch/stuff_for_the_world/list-test.html
>>
>> What problem does this solve?
>
> It solves the first use case Jukka mentioned in his original post:
>
> Am 10.03.2011 09:20 schrieb Jukka K. Korpela:
>> The <p> element (ever since it became an element) has always allowed
>> inline (text-level) content only, and no change is planned to this in
>> HTML5. Under these circumstances, what should we say to people to
>> need to use paragraphs that contain lists, for example?

So does Hixie's answer of "Tell them to use two <p>s and a <ul>".  His
answer has the benefit of not requiring any changes to HTML, and not
introducing a fourth type of list that is only very subtly different
from <ul>.


On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 7:22 AM, Andy Mabbett <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
> Consider:
>       I like apples, pears, grapes, but not bananas. Nor do I like peaches.
> and:
>       I like
>          * apples
>          * pears
>          * grapes
>      but not bananas. Nor do I like peaches.
>
> The difference between those two is presentational, not semantic. Each
> is a single paragraph.

Well, in standard English, the prose list would actually read "I like
apples, pears, and grapes, but not bananas.".  You'd have to somehow
mark up and hide the "and" when presenting it as a structured list
instead of a prose list.  This suggests that there *is* a semantic
difference between the two.  It's a subtle difference, to be sure, but
it's there.

More importantly, what problem is caused by having to mark up those
two cases slightly differently?

~TJ