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

Tue Mar 1 15:57:17 PST 2011

>
> 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.
>

The same way we all are married with traditional sense of body, and see no
reason to change it. If it do the work, why to run the risk?.
<offtopic>The same way with keep the doctype declaration that being mostly
useless is required to not to 'trigger' quirks mode, we're suffering a past
ghost.</offtopic>

2011/3/1 Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com>

> 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.
>