[whatwg] A plea to Hixie to adopt <main>

Mon Nov 12 16:53:17 PST 2012

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 5:26 AM, Jens O. Meiert <jens at meiert.com> wrote:

> Should <main> be optional or required?
>

> I’d deem an optional <main> to be nonsense because it suggests
> documents are inherently without goal, or focus.
>
> I’d deem a required <main> to be nonsense because we already have an
> (implied) <body> element, and because element proliferation doesn’t
> work in anyone’s favor.
>

I can imagine it to become "required", if we mean by that that the browsers
will need to parse a page and either find a <main> element or determine
heuristically with the Scooby-Doo algorithm which part of the page is
actually the main part and then add that to its DOM. Since we have the
Scooby-Doo algorithm, we have a means to stay backwards compatible.

That <body> essentially means <main> always seemed reasonable to me.
> There are plenty of options for authors to add styling hooks if they
> need any, including <div role=main>.

You are correct - there is no need for this for styling. However, <main> is
actually not for styling, but to provide a direct markup of the
*semantically* main piece of content on the page. A Scooby-Doo algorithm
can only heuristically determine what that is - with <main> the Web Dev
gets an actual vehicle to point their finger explicitly rather than
implicitly saying in a hand-wavy manner that it's what remains if you take
away all this other stuff (that is: if we're lucky and that "other stuff"
has actually been marked up).

Silvia.