[whatwg] Double meaning of the <u> element

[Shaun Moss]

Sure, I agree - so, deprecate the <b>, <i>, <u> and <s> tags then.



On 2012-05-02 12:39 PM, Ashley Sheridan wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-05-02 at 11:31 +1000, Shaun Moss wrote:
>> I know it's contentious, but as a teacher it's very simple to teach
>> students of HTML5 that:
>> <u>  = underline
>> <b>  = bold
>> <i>  = italic
>> <s>  = strikethrough
>>
>> Of course, I also teach<strong>  and<em>, but the simplest way to teach
>> <b>  and<i>  is that it's merely an easy way to create bold or italic
>> text when the meaning of<strong>  or<em>  doesn't apply. They represent
>> a convenience that spares the author the work of using span tags and
>> creating a CSS class with font-weight or font-style properties.<u>  is
>> the same, just an easy way to create underlined text. It doesn't really
>> need semantics piled on top of it - that just makes it harder to teach
>> and learn. But using Chinese names or misspelled text as /examples/ of
>> when to use<u>  is another matter.
>>
>> I grok the desire to have all tags defined semantically, but if the
>> semantic definitions add unnecessary complexity, then it just seems like
>> a kludge. Anyone can understand<b>  = bold.
>>
>> Shaun
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2012-04-30 3:46 PM, Andrés Sanhueza wrote:
>> >  The<u>   element was made conforming due to widespread usage and for
>> >  some cases were other elements weren't suitable. However, I feel that
>> >  the current definition is not very clear, as it gives two somewhat
>> >  unrelated used for it: misspelled text and proper names on Chinese. I
>> >  believe that is fine if is one or the other, but by the current
>> >  definition seems that the purpose of retaining the element is merely
>> >  were to underline needs to be used to represent something regardless
>> >  what it is, which seems inconsistent with other similar tags that are
>> >  better defined to have more finite purposes that aren't based on the
>> >  fallback presentational look, even if relevant at the time of defining
>> >  those. By the definitions seems that proper names and book names are
>> >  suitable to be indicated by<b>   and<cite>   respectively; or some new
>> >  element altogether. I'm aware that the fallback look is an issue, yet
>> >  I believe it should be resolved in a more consistent way.
>>
>
> I still seems more important to ask why something should be bold or 
> italic. Surely getting students into the mindset of describing their 
> data is more beneficial?
> -- 
> Thanks,
> Ash
> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>
>

-- 
Shaun Moss
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