<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 7:40 AM, Pentasis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pentasis@lavabit.com">pentasis@lavabit.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The small element represents small print [...]<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The b element represents a span of text to be stylistically offset from<br>
</blockquote>
the normal prose without conveying any extra importance [...]<br>
<br>
Both definitions seems rather presentational (contrasting, for example,<br>
the new semantic definition for the <i> element) and could also be<br>
realized by use of <span> elements.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Why use <span class="smallprint">Copyright (c) 2008 ?</span> instead<br>
of just <small>Copyright (c) 2008 ?</small>? The latter possibility<br>
is way more semantic.<br>
<br>
And why use <span class="brand">Siemens</span> instead of just <b>Siemens</b>?<br>
<br>
To me, the small and b elements ? especially the former ? make perfect sense.<br>
<br>
-david<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
I agree with the original poster on this.<br>
<br>
1) Just because it makes sense to a human (it doesn't to me), does not mean it makes sense to a machine.<br>
2) When using <small> on different text-nodes throughout the document, one would expect all these text-nodes to be semantically the same. But they are not (unless all of them are copyright notices).</blockquote><div>
<br>Why would you expect this? Or rather, why would you expect this level of semantic specificity? <small> means something fairly broad that multiple types of specific semantics can fall under.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
3) <small> is a styling element, it has zero semantic meaning, so it does not belong inside HTML.</blockquote><div><br>It *had* zero semantic meaning. Actually, though, this wasn't quite true. The semantics that have been attached to <small> (and <i>, and <b>) are an approximation of the common semantics that users of the elements conferred on the contents. Text within <small> was, quite often, used for "small print". Matching up theory with practice is a good thing here.<br>
<br><i> and <b>, once you subtract the semantics stolen by <em> and <strong>, are used pretty much specifically as the spec states.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
4) <b>Siemens</b> also does not tell me anything about the semantics. Is it used as a name, a brand a foreign word ? etc. I cannot get that information from looking at the <b> element.</blockquote><div><br>
Of course not. You're not intended to. What you *do* get, though, is that this is a word which is *intentionally* stylistically offset from the rest of the text. This conveys semantic meaning to a human - it means that the word is special or being used in a particular context. <b> and <i> don't communicate *much*, but they communicate *something*. One could, of course, also use a <span> to mark up and style the text, thus communicating the same intent to a person reading the styled text, but to a machine the <span> means literally nothing, while <b> and <i> have the possibility to communicate *something*.<br>
<br>In addition, the fact that these elements traditionally have a particular preferred rendering means something. A dumb terminal which doesn't understand CSS won't give any indication to the user that a <span> exists at all, while <b> and <i> have a chance of providing fallback rendering that still accomplishes what they were designed to do. A decent chunk of html5 concerns itself with providing fallbacks and graceful degradation (or progressive enhancement, whichever way you want to look at it). Having some *nearly* semantic-free elements which have a meaningful fallback can be useful.<br>
<br>Of course, it may certainly be more useful to you if you provide a class on the <i> as well.<br><br>~TJ</div></div>