[whatwg] Giving the <body> tag a new meaning.

Tue Mar 1 15:46:09 PST 2011

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 8:59 AM, usuario <soyhobo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Let me put it in others words. Following the last example.
>
> Here is the way i see it,
> Everything inside a word document IS CONTENT (not body). In that document we
> may have or not a header, or a footer, but we always "should" have a body,
> in this word document, for convenience purposes text by default is intended
> to be body (hence no need to mark it as that).
>
> In HTML, as you say, everything by default is body (about the same a a word
> document). But the thing is that in HTML5, WE ARE making distinctions among
> *header* and *footer* content. My only counter here is why aren't we making
> distinctions of body content too?
>
> Is this semantic to you?
> <body>
>    <header></header>
>    <footer></footer>
> </body>
> There is an obvious (may be not dangerous) semantic issue there. Why in the
> world a footer can be inside a body, aren't they siblings of a document?
>
> To me (but hope you too), something semantic would be this:
> <content>
>    <header></header>
>    <body></body>
>    <footer></footer>
> </content>
>
> I've been requested to solve a problem. Former has never been a problem, web
> as worked well in that way. I just am setting out a new way of thinking
> about html. Being more declarative.
>

You are too much married to the traditional notion of the "body of a
document" as known from paper. The meaning of "body" is here more akin
to the meaning of the "body content of an (e)mail". Everything that's
the main content of a Web page is "body". It may not be the most
appropriate word for the kinds of Web pages you have in mind, but
"content" may not be more appropriate as an element name either. I've
long since decided that the exact meaning of a word differs based on
context and trying to it's easier to adapt your perception that to
adapt the world. In the Web context "body" is just what it is: the
body of a Web page (technical semantics), not the body of the content
of a Web page (content semantics). You could always reverse your
argument and try to introduce a <content> element between <header> and
<footer> (though: <div> does pretty well for this). But really, there
are more important things to get right IMHO.

Cheers,
Silvia.