Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Hallvord R M Steen wrote:
> Do you volunteer for the job of going through all "role" values
> and all current HTML element semantics and define which one takes
> presedence in each possible conflict? Matthew's point is that this
> task itself is massive.

Since both roles and microformats are open extension mechanisms, it's a
moving target and specifying rules of precedence would become harder and
harder, and impose a greater and greater burden of testing on extension
spec writers, as more and more roles and microformats are added.

One way to manage this complexity would be to group roles and
microformats into /types/ and set rules of precedence for those types.
Which could be done, but I don't see anyone doing it.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Mike Schinkel]

Hallvord R M Steen wrote:
> >  you have an opinion that few if any others are rallying behind.
> 
> Perhaps because it seems too obvious to discuss?

It doesn't seem obvious to anyone over on the microformat list, AFAICT.  If
it is that critical, why are all those to whom it is obvious making the case
on uf-discuss?

> You could go back to the list of markup samples, and tell us 
> for each of them what you feel the actual semantic of that 
> should be, and how it should be handled visually or in form 
> submission. Once you've tried to understand the complexity 
> involved we'll have more common ground for the discussion.

Unfortunately, this aspect is not my highest priority.  The unfortunate
thing is I'll probably just have to knowingly generate invalid HTML in some
cases because I know the browsers will handle it, as will so many others who
are using semantic markup in HTML who bump into the limitations imposed by
the specification writer.  FWIW.

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Hallvord R M Steen]

On 01/01/07, Mike Schinkel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> Interesting that you should choose that example, because
> it can mean different things depending on the element you use
> it on. Therefore, a global |type| attribute would almost
> certainly conflict with the element-specific attribute unless
> it was defined otherwise.

Conflicts don't create any anxiety for me. If there is a conflict either
there is an undefined state or one of the two is defined to take
prescedence.


Right. Do you volunteer for the job of going through all "role" values
and all current HTML element semantics and define which one takes
presedence in each possible conflict? Matthew's point is that this
task itself is massive. Imagine: for each suggested "role" value, go
through all HTML elements (since "role" is a global attribute) and
note possible conflicts. Go through all other HTML attributes (and
their values) and note possible conflicts. Now define the outcome of
each conflict. Do it again, but now in C++ code.
His secondary point is that if the spec doesn't do this, every browser
will handle things differently so authors will not be able to use
"role" as intended because of browser incompatibilities.


> I've shown you that not only are there conflicts with
> proposed attributes, roles and elements, but that they
> actually compete in certain situations. Furthermore, I did so
> with only minutes worth of research.

I don't see that as a problem they way you do.


That's the attitude that made HTML error recovery such a mess :-(


 you have an opinion that few if any others are rallying behind.


Perhaps because it seems too obvious to discuss?
You could go back to the list of markup samples, and tell us for each
of them what you feel the actual semantic of that should be, and how
it should be handled visually or in form submission. Once you've tried
to understand the complexity involved we'll have more common ground
for the discussion.

--
Hallvord R. M. Steen

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Mike Schinkel]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> Interesting that you should choose that example, because 
> it can mean different things depending on the element you use 
> it on. Therefore, a global |type| attribute would almost 
> certainly conflict with the element-specific attribute unless 
> it was defined otherwise.

Conflicts don't create any anxiety for me. If there is a conflict either
there is an undefined state or one of the two is defined to take
prescedence.

> One thing an element like |type| does provide, however, is 
> mutual exclusion. However, you could do that with a namespace:

Please forgive me if I am exhibiting my ignorance, but my understanding is
that HTML5 will not have XML namespaces per se because HTML5 is not XML?

> Notice how the use of namespaced attributes instead of 
> |role| actually requires fewer characters. In theory, if you 
> used a lot of roles, the savings in equal signs and quotation 
> marks might make |role| more attractive, but I doubt it would 
> be significant to justify |role| itself.

> >> purpose is orthogonal to the purpose of the elements they're being 
> >> added to. That's why |id| and |class| are so useful.
> >> They don't alter the semantics of the element. Rather, they act as 
> >> targets for styling and scripting.

> >>However, global attributes like |role|, |src| and 
> |href| directly 
> >> compete with the semantics of HTML elements in many ways. 
> We already 
> >> see this with |role| versus "HTML5". Many roles have 
> semantics that 
> >> overlap with elements like  (navigation),  
> (secondary), 
> >> 
> >> (note) and  (contentinfo).
I still have not heard a compelling argument against an additional
attribute.
May I ask, but is your relationship to this spec?  Do you need to implement
it?  On what platform?

> I've shown you that not only are there conflicts with 
> proposed attributes, roles and elements, but that they 
> actually compete in certain situations. Furthermore, I did so 
> with only minutes worth of research.

I don't see that as a problem they way you do.

> >>> Is there an axiom or W3C finding that we can reference for this?
> >>
> >>Of course not. That's the problem. You see the power of markup 
> >> being shifted from elements to attributes to attribute values.

Then your beef should not be with me, but with the W3C (or similar). If they
will publish a finding that says it's a bad thing, I might come to see it as
such.  Right now I don't.

> This line of conversation doesn't advance our conversation 
> regarding global attributes and roles. Even if there is no 
> support for my viewpoint in the W3C, the idea that this 
> proves my argument invalid is a logical fallacy.

It is NOT fallacy as the entire point of the W3C and IETF and others is to
develop consensus between Good and Bad Things so we have some Authorities
and don't have to debate our PERSONAL OPINIONS ad infinitum.  If you think
it is wrong, take it a group that will agree and publish a finding. Or
create an advocacy initiative (like I have: www.welldesignedurls.org) and
publish enough of your work in a compelling enough manner that people will
agree to support your position.  As it is, your position is just a judgement
call that can only be determined with individual experience to which I
currently disgree, but please don't call me out on my position in a public
forum because you have an opinion that few if any others are rallying
behind. 

Even better, why not go to [uf-discuss] and make your case there?  If you
can convince those guys it's not a good idea you'll be far more effective
then trying to convince me here (where few others on *this* list seem to
care.)

I can debate each of your remaining points from your message, but it is
hardly relevent because it won't change your mind or for that matter anyone
else's on this list.  At a high level you seem to feel that everything
should be tightly controlled so there is no chance of invalid combinations
and I believe at a high level things should be loosely controlled even if it
means some invaldid markuo sp that useful patterns are allowed to emerge.
You prefer control, I prefer freedom.  If we were talking politics you'd be
right-wing and I've be left.  Since it is a fundamental disagreement in
philosophy which doesn't necessarily make either of us more right or wrong
than the other, neither of us can really claim the high ground.  

If you feel strongly about your position, take it to the W3C, uf-discuss,
the IETF, or all of the above and make your case so that they publish a
finding in support of your position.  Until then, I don't think it's
appropriate to continue discussing on WHATWG.  If others on the list
disagree and think we should continue the debate here, they should let us
both. Until then, adieu. 

Respectfully,

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

Mike Schinkel wrote:
> Matthew Raymond wrote:
>> Mike Schinkel wrote:
>>> Why should attributes (only?) specify the details of semantics that
>>> elements already possess?
>>Global attributes aren't necessarily wrong if their
> 
> By "global" do you simply mean attributes for HTML elements, i.e. a "type"
> attribute for a  element, for example?

   Interesting that you should choose that example, because it can mean
different things depending on the element you use it on. Therefore, a
global |type| attribute would almost certainly conflict with the
element-specific attribute unless it was defined otherwise.

   One thing an element like |type| does provide, however, is mutual
exclusion. However, you could do that with a namespace:

| 

   For |role|, you're required to use namespaces anyways, so I don't see
how |role| brings anything to the table. It's just a means of creating
minimized boolean attributes in XML. I'd much rather see XML modified to
accommodate minimized attributes because I suspect the additional
parsing of the attribute value would be just as burdensome.

   Now, remember this example?

| 

   Let's take out the conflicting roles and add a check state:

| 

   It could be eliminated by using a mutually exclusive attribute:

| 

   Notice how the use of namespaced attributes instead of |role|
actually requires fewer characters. In theory, if you used a lot of
roles, the savings in equal signs and quotation marks might make |role|
more attractive, but I doubt it would be significant to justify |role|
itself.

   Even then, though, you have to determine how the attributes interact
with the element they're assigned to. Does |wai:widget| override the
 element's |type| attribute? Or its |value|? How does this
attribute integrate into the form submission model? How would I use this
attribute with XHTML 2.0 and XForms? Every time you introduce a new
namespace, you have an entire set of elements for which you have to
define interactions with other namespaces.

>> purpose is orthogonal to the purpose of the elements they're
>> being added to. That's why |id| and |class| are so useful.
>> They don't alter the semantics of the element. Rather, they
>> act as targets for styling and scripting.
>>
>>However, global attributes like |role|, |src| and |href|
>> directly compete with the semantics of HTML elements in many
>> ways. We already see this with |role| versus "HTML5". Many
>> roles have semantics that overlap with elements like 
>> (navigation),  (secondary), 
>> (note) and  (contentinfo).
> 
> You reference altering the semantics as if that was A Bad Thing. I believe I
> am to understand that you believe it is A Bad Thing, but my current view is
> that it is not a bad thing and AFAICT you've not given any evidence that it
> is A Bad Thing.  Now I'm not saying that I won't ultimately realize that it
> is A Bad Thing, but right now I just don't see it.

   I've shown you that not only are there conflicts with proposed
attributes, roles and elements, but that they actually compete in
certain situations. Furthermore, I did so with only minutes worth of
research.

>>> Is there an axiom or W3C finding that we can reference for this?
>>
>>Of course not. That's the problem. You see the power of
>> markup being shifted from elements to attributes to attribute
>> values. 
> 
> I'm having to read between the lines here in order to understand your point.
> Are you saying that you see it as a big problem, but nobody else has seen it
> as a big problem, or at least not enough people to author an guidance
> against doing so?

   This line of conversation doesn't advance our conversation regarding
global attributes and roles. Even if there is no support for my
viewpoint in the W3C, the idea that this proves my argument invalid is a
logical fallacy.

>> The |role| attribute itself is equivalent to having
>> an infinite number of boolean attributes.
> 
> I still need to see why this is bad.

   Because markup structure has semantic significance. If you shift all
the semantic meaning to global attributes, you loose the ability to use
structure for semantic purposes.

>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> http://whatwg.org";>
>> http://whatwg.org/images/logo";>
>> 

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Dec 26, 2006, at 1:50 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:

...
Non-heuristic machine consumption fails when semantic elements are 
abused, and becomes practical when elements have multiple popular 
meanings (examples of the latter include  in HTML 4, and  in 
HTML 5).


That should have been "becomes IMpractical when elements have multiple 
popular meanings". Sorry for any confusion.


--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Dec 22, 2006, at 3:23 AM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:


Henri Sivonen wrote:
...
Also, it seems to me that the usefulness of non-heuristic machine 
consumption of semantic roles of things like dialogs, names of 
vessels, biological taxonomical names, quotations, etc. has been 
vastly exaggerated.


I'm not entirely sure what "non-heuristic machine consumption" is,


An example of non-heuristic machine consumption is where Google 
Glossary thinks: "In an HTML 3.2 or earlier document containing the 
code 'foo bar', 'bar' is a definition of 
'foo'". (It probably thinks the same about HTML 4 documents, too, which 
is applying a small "ignore that nonsense about dialogues" heuristic.)


An example of heuristic machine consumption is where Google Glossary 
thinks: "In an HTML document containing the code 'foo: 
bar', 'bar' is probably a definition of 'foo', especially if the 
page has several consecutive paragraphs with that structure and 
different bold text."


Non-heuristic machine consumption fails when semantic elements are 
abused, and becomes practical when elements have multiple popular 
meanings (examples of the latter include  in HTML 4, and  in 
HTML 5). Heuristic machine consumption fails occasionally by the very 
nature of heuristics (examples currently include

 and
.)

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
> Leons Petrazickis wrote:
>> I think what's wanted is a Cascading Semantics Language.
> 
> I'm baffled. Why do we want this? What would it allow us to do?

   There are people who posted ideas about semantic properties for CSS
on the www-style mailing list. They would likely be ecstatic about
turning CSS into a cascading semantics language. Personally, this would
be a greater nightmare than the |role| attribute.

   However, global attributes like |role| aren't much better. Attributes
should specify the details of semantics that elements already possess.
For example, |type| on an  element specifies the type of input.
One of the example of the |role| attribute shows how you can provide
values like "checkbox" to elements like . I can understand
assigning values such as these to DHTML container elements for
accessibility purposes (and that might be a legitimate reason to create
something like a global "accessrole" attribute or something similar),
but |role| does not define any such limitations.

   Generally, though, this is just math. For every attribute or role you
have that can apply to ALL elements, you have the semantics of all those
 elements to interact with, plus you have interactions between an
indefinite number of global attributes that may be defined on that
element. Without some sort of scope limitation, you can't possible
define how the semantics of everything interacts. Think about the
conversation regarding how simple nested elements in HTML interact with
their parents and increase the complexity by several orders of magnitude.

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> Moreover, it is just natural that  
> authors want to *optimize* for the visual media first with aural and  
> tactile media coming as second and a distant third. 

I'd suggest the emphasis on text in much current web content is is
itself a product of the comparatively poor transfer rates of audio and
video: a situation that the growth of broadband telecommunications is
changing rapidly. Certainly many people struggling with Blogger and
MySpace markup might be happier with pod and video casting. Conversely,
one of text's major advantages is its greater susceptibility to
machine-processing and hence "free" accessibility.

> Also, it seems to me that the usefulness of non-heuristic machine consumption 
> of  
> semantic roles of things like dialogs, names of vessels, biological  
> taxonomical names, quotations, etc. has been vastly exaggerated.

I'm not entirely sure what "non-heuristic machine consumption" is, but,
given the lack of agreed microformats for these things, I'd say their
usefulness is practically untested. (And given the limited market
penetration of the microformat "idea", I wouldn't conclude anything from
the non-existence of related microformats. We haven't even got hCite off
the ground yet, and the market for that is massive.)

On the quotations front, I'd argue this is largely the fault of W3C spec
writers for:

1. Failing to suggest behaviour for the CITE attribute; consequent chaos
described at:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2006Nov/0053.html

(Web Applications 1.0 fixes this (a suggestion about how to avoid
conflicts with anchor links would be good though). XHTML2 doesn't.)

2. Failing to suggest how to connect CITE to Q and BLOCKQUOTE in a
machine-readable fashion. (Web Applications 1.0 fixes this. XHTML2
doesn't.)

3. Failing to pay any attention to real print typography of quotations
(where the host language usually determines punctuation, not the quoted
language). (Web Applications 1.0 currently dodges this question by not
discussing delimiters. XHTML2 completely confuses the issue by allowing
both in-text delimiters and stylesheet delimiters, even though neither
currently covers the range of quotation punctuation. So not fixed
anywhere really.)

4. Failing to provide adequate facilities for styling Q. (/Still/ not
fixed in CSS3.)

In addition to W3C, we can also blame Microsoft for 1) not including Q
in MSAA (fixed in IAccessible2, not sure about UI Automation) and 2) not
generating quotation punctuation in IE as per the HTML specification
(still not fixed in IE7, and while they've made noises about fixing it
in IE8, they haven't yet fixed their erroneous MSDN documentation
either)

One has to eliminate those key factors from the equation before you can
begin to use past evidence to assess whether authors would be happy to
use Q, and whether any one would machine process it. (Actually the
Window-Eyes screen reader already can report Q; and the Fire Vox talking
browser will in the future.)

(More Q obsession can be found at:

http://www.benjaminhawkeslewis.com/www/accessibility/q-element.html )

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Henri Sivonen]

On Dec 21, 2006, at 05:21, Karl Dubost wrote:


Le 21 déc. 2006 à 00:23, Henri Sivonen a écrit :
Actually, structure is communicated to people using presentation.  
Presentation isn't just about attractiveness.


Lao Niu puts his two fingers in the eyes of Henri in a Full contact  
move. Henri is blind. Henri is trying to kick the legs, and Lao Niu  
is putting two sharp sticks in Henri's ears. Henri is desperate  
trying to read the old master tales.


That was uncalled for.

The point is that there are limited ways of communicating data to  
humans. Content needs to be *presented* on visual, aural or tactile  
media in practice. Olfactory and gustative media would have  
hopelessly bad data transfer rates, so it isn't practical to design  
for them.


For human consumers of content, practical device and media  
independence is achieved when there are reasonable presentations for  
realistically applicable media. Moreover, it is just natural that  
authors want to *optimize* for the visual media first with aural and  
tactile media coming as second and a distant third. Also, it seems to  
me that the usefulness of non-heuristic machine consumption of  
semantic roles of things like dialogs, names of vessels, biological  
taxonomical names, quotations, etc. has been vastly exaggerated.  
Therefore, I think the non-presentationalism principle shouldn't be  
taken too dogmatically.


--
Henri Sivonen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Karl Dubost]

Le 21 déc. 2006 à 00:23, Henri Sivonen a écrit :
Actually, structure is communicated to people using presentation.  
Presentation isn't just about attractiveness.


Lao Niu puts his two fingers in the eyes of Henri in a Full contact  
move. Henri is blind. Henri is trying to kick the legs, and Lao Niu  
is putting two sharp sticks in Henri's ears. Henri is desperate  
trying to read the old master tales.


The presentation is useful for understanding the structure in  
*certain contexts*. It's all about context (graphics, ability,  
cultural, etc.).



--
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager, QA Activity Lead
  QA Weblog - http://www.w3.org/QA/
 *** Be Strict To Be Cool ***

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Mike Schinkel]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
>I'm not always the most tactful or sensitive person. If my 
> choice of words in my original message offended you, I 
> apologize. My passion for a subject occasionally makes me 
> blind to how others might interpret my message.

Apology accepted.

>If you really want to debate the original topic, I'll be 
> waiting. I'd be pleasantly surprised if this actually turned 
> into a discussion about semantic styling languages...

Can you please explain exactly what you mean about "semantic styling
languages?"  Do you mean the same as what Tantek refers to as "semantic
(X)HTML?" [1] I think of "styling" as relating to fonts, colors,
positioning, etc.

I decided to google for your various comments to try to get an understanding
of what you were talking about in past discussions and I was sure that you
had to have expressed this issue in the past. I found this link [2]. From it
I quote:

> The problem is that, for all the creative ways you can 
> use hCalendar/hCard, it's more complicated for webmasters 
> to read and understand and more complicated for 
> developers to implement. Furthermore, I dislike the entire 
> system of using class names as markup. Class names 
> should be reserved for user-defined semantics.

Is this the same issue?

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/

[1] http://tantek.com/presentations/20040928sdforumws/semantic-xhtml.html
[2]
http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2005-February/00
3116.html  

P.S. Based on some of your comments from [2] you might find that I am in
more agreement with you than you first assumed (or maybe not, I won't know
until I better understand your issues.)

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Michel Fortin]

Le 20 déc. 2006 à 10:23, Henri Sivonen a écrit :

Actually, structure is communicated to people using presentation.  
Presentation isn't just about attractiveness.


Point taken. It's about making the document understandable, readable,  
*and* attractive.


I think eschewing presentational features as a matter of principle  
misses the point.


I totally agree. HTML should be describing documents in a useful  
manner. Minimizing presentational features is a good idea as long as  
it does not reduce the capabilities of the language to correctly  
describe the content in a usable manner.



Michel Fortin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.michelf.com/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Leons Petrazickis wrote:

> I think what's wanted is a Cascading Semantics Language.

I'm baffled. Why do we want this? What would it allow us to do?

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Henri Sivonen wrote:

> I think eschewing presentational features as a matter of principle  
> misses the point. The goal behind the principle is independence of  
> one client device or presentation media. A presentational feature can  
> be sufficiently independent of particular devices and media if it has  
> a reasonable presentations on all realistically relevant media.

But IMHO "independence of one client device or presentation media" is
not /the/ goal of eschewing presentational markup, but rather only one
such goal. It's trivial for a screen reader to report presentational
information such as . Disambiguation and ease of restyling are just
as important. The same presentation can mean multiple things. Semantic
markup disambiguates between , , , and so on. This
helps with machine processing and human understanding. And if you want
to change italic citations to bold citations, then you don't have to
distinguish the citations from the non-citations by hand. You just put a
different rule into your stylesheet. 

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Leons Petrazickis]

On 12/20/06, James Graham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Matthew Raymond wrote:

>A "semantic styling language" would be a language to assign semantics
> to elements in a manner similar to how CSS controls their presentations.

FWIW, it seems that a better term for the concept you describe would be
"semantic binding language", since presentation isn't actually involved
anywhere. In the same vein CSS would be a "presentation binding language" and
XBL roughly a "behavior binding language". Having said that, I'm not sure I
follow the point that you are trying to make.


I think what's wanted is a Cascading Semantics Language. Its syntax
could be based on CSS. For example:
.masthead {
 type:heading;
 strength:high;
}

.division {
 type:heading;
 strength: normal;
}

.flow {
 type:body;
 strength:normal;
}

.aside {
 strength:weaker;
}

Behaviours, script bindings, etc could be mixed into this.

Regards,
--
Leons Petrazickis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Henri Sivonen]

On Dec 20, 2006, at 16:18, Michel Fortin wrote:

Huh, what is a "meaningful presentation" exactly? To me, what is  
meaningful content is *not* presentational. The presentation is the  
way you arrange and surround your content to make it attractive (or  
not).


Actually, structure is communicated to people using presentation.  
Presentation isn't just about attractiveness.


I think eschewing presentational features as a matter of principle  
misses the point. The goal behind the principle is independence of  
one client device or presentation media. A presentational feature can  
be sufficiently independent of particular devices and media if it has  
a reasonable presentations on all realistically relevant media.


--
Henri Sivonen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[James Graham]

Matthew Raymond wrote:


   A "semantic styling language" would be a language to assign semantics
to elements in a manner similar to how CSS controls their presentations.


FWIW, it seems that a better term for the concept you describe would be 
"semantic binding language", since presentation isn't actually involved 
anywhere. In the same vein CSS would be a "presentation binding language" and 
XBL roughly a "behavior binding language". Having said that, I'm not sure I 
follow the point that you are trying to make.

--
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
 -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Michel Fortin]

Le 20 déc. 2006 à 6:57, Matthew Raymond a écrit :

   A "presentational markup language" would be like SVG or X3D.  
They use

markup to create a presentation that may or may not be meaningful.


Huh, what is a "meaningful presentation" exactly? To me, what is  
meaningful content is *not* presentational. The presentation is the  
way you arrange and surround your content to make it attractive (or  
not). Your definition of SVG as "presentational" precludes it from  
being meaningful, although you specifically say it can be meaningful  
too so I'm a little confused.


SVG is simply an image description markup language, just like HTML is  
a document description markup language. SVG being presentational  
depends on how it is used. SVG may be suitable for visual media  
mostly, that doesn't automatically make it presentational.


And just like HTML, you can, to a degree, separate the meaningful  
parts from the presentational parts in an SVG image: if a color was  
chosen for presentational reasons, set it using CSS; if the chosen  
font for a block of text is not meaningful to the document, set it  
with CSS or just inherit it from the HTML document if you have inline  
SVG.



Michel Fortin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.michelf.com/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> A "semantic styling language" would be a language to assign semantics
> to elements in a manner similar to how CSS controls their presentations.
> One could change attributes like |href| and |rule| into style sheet
> properties and they'd still work in the exact same way, except that you
> would be able to use selectors rather than placing them on each element
> individually.

To be honest, I still don't understand this explanation. Is this a
roundabout way of defining a "semantic styling language" as an (X)HTML
that uses (X)HTML attributes as well as elements to express meaning?
(Which is of course true of HTML 4 already, and even more true of the
proposed XHTML 2.)

> HTML elements themselves would no longer have any meaning. They would
> just be targets for semantic property assignment. Think about what
> happens to the  element if |href| allows every element to be a hyperlink.

I don't see how that matters at all. It seems to me that what's crucial
is that if authors are going to /rely/ on any semantic elements or
attributes, that user-agents should be guaranteed to express those
semantics to users in a usable fashion. This is my central worry about
microformats, especially when people starting trying to hide data within
attributes rather than exposing it as text content, and it is also my
central worry about XHTML2's role module.

> Semantics can interact in ways presentation never could. For
> instance, what happens when you put |href| on an  element?

No idea. What happens with http://www.example.com";> ?

>  What does  mean? 

No idea. What would Foobar mean?

> This is also a problem with microformats that don't specify what elements 
> certain classes, et
> cetera, can be used on.

Now /that/ is a real problem, but it is little different in type to
specifying what elements contain, or can contain, what other elements.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
> Matthew Raymond wrote:
>> semantic styling language
> 
> Sorry to interrupt, but I don't understand what this phrase means. How
> would you define a "semantic styling language" differently from a
> "semantic markup language", a "presentational markup language", and a
> "markup language for semantics and presentation"?

   A "presentational markup language" would be like SVG or X3D. They use
markup to create a presentation that may or may not be meaningful. HTML
is a "semantic markup language". It generally doesn't define how to
present an element. Instead, it defines the what that element is
supposed to mean in an abstract sense.

   A "semantic styling language" would be a language to assign semantics
to elements in a manner similar to how CSS controls their presentations.
One could change attributes like |href| and |rule| into style sheet
properties and they'd still work in the exact same way, except that you
would be able to use selectors rather than placing them on each element
individually. This is what I meant by my insensitive "half-a**ed"
comment. If you're going to do semantic assignment in a global fashion,
wouldn't you rather select entire categories of elements and assign a
set of semantic properties to them all at once?

   As powerful as this is, though, I strongly oppose it for two reasons:

1) HTML elements themselves would no longer have any meaning. They would
just be targets for semantic property assignment. Think about what
happens to the  element if |href| allows every element to be a hyperlink.

2) Semantics can interact in ways presentation never could. For
instance, what happens when you put |href| on an  element? What
does  mean? When attributes (or properties) are global,
every element has to define who it interacts with that property. The
number of interactions grows exponentially. (This is also a problem with
microformats that don't specify what elements certain classes, et
cetera, can be used on.)

   Markup for semantics AND presentation? That would be the  and 
elements. ;)

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

   I'm not always the most tactful or sensitive person. If my choice of
words in my original message offended you, I apologize. My passion for a
subject occasionally makes me blind to how others might interpret my
message.

   However, that does not excuse your behavior. You talk about how
showing respect, but you're not willing to show it yourself. You avoid
debating the subject of my original message, while replying _only_ to a
perceived slight. You do not encourage an atmosphere of respect, so stop
pretending to be its champion.

   If you really want to debate the original topic, I'll be waiting. I'd
be pleasantly surprised if this actually turned into a discussion about
semantic styling languages, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Mike Schinkel]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
>I think it's clear from the context of my previous message 
> that I was neither referring specifically to you, nor did I 
> make any claim to know your thoughts. 

Based on the language you chose, that wasn't clear to me at all. Let me
quote:

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> No, because you don't understand what you're 
> really developing. ...  I may not like the 
> idea of semantics styling languages, but what I like less is 
> a series of half-a**ed unconscious attempts to create 
> semantics styling integrated into HTML.

Maybe your is a use of language is different from that which I am not
familiar, but as I read it, "you" referred to me.  "You" can refer to the
collective, but your context didn't support that intrepretation. And the
"you" wouldn't have been bad had you not included the "half-a**ed
unconscious attempts" as part of your closing statement. As such, even if
you did mean "you, collectively", I still find it disrespectful.

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> There's nothing respectful about the tone of your reply. 

I didn't intend for it to be; I was responding as I was responded to.

However, out of respect for everyone else on WHATWG this will be my last
comment on the list regarding the above issue.  If you want to debate the
merits and non-merits of adding semantics to HTML, or "semantic styling
languages" as you call it, I'll be more than happy to in a mutually
respectful context.

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

Mike Schinkel wrote:
> I may not like that you disagreed with me, but what I far less is for
> someone to talk down to me in a public forum based on their *assumption*
> that they know what *I* am thinking.

   I think it's clear from the context of my previous message that I was
neither referring specifically to you, nor did I make any claim to know
your thoughts. My claim was that you and others were pushing new
features that collectively amounted to a semantic styling language
without realizing it. If anything, that's believing I know what group of
people are _not_ thinking.

> A more respectful approach would have been far more productive.

   There's nothing respectful about the tone of your reply. If you
wanted to constructively criticize my previous message, you could have
simply emailed me directly. What you're really trying to do is publicly
shame me, and that's not something you do to someone you respect.

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Mike Schinkel]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> I may not like the idea of semantics styling languages, 
> but what I like less is a series of half-a**ed 
> unconscious attempts to create semantics styling 
> integrated into HTML.

I may not like that you disagreed with me, but what I far less is for
someone to talk down to me in a public forum based on their *assumption*
that they know what *I* am thinking.

A more respectful approach would have been far more productive.

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/

Re: [whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> semantic styling language

Sorry to interrupt, but I don't understand what this phrase means. How
would you define a "semantic styling language" differently from a
"semantic markup language", a "presentational markup language", and a
"markup language for semantics and presentation"?

--
Benjamin Hawke-Lewis

[whatwg] Semantic styling languages in the guise of HTML attributes.

[Matthew Raymond]

Mike Schinkel wrote:
> Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>> In a world in which one CAN consider adding alternative 
>> attributes (HTML 5, etc.), it makes no sense to me one would 
>> simply say "no."
> 
> [I'm cross posting to uf-discuss and whatwg because Bruce's comment was made
> on uf-discuss but I've made the same point on WHATWG.]
> 
> Bruce, I agree with you completely. But Ian Hickson has said that AFAHK that
> there was no cry for additional attributes on the uf-discuss list, And Ian
> also said he saw no need for them after I requested to get several
> attributes added to the list of attributes applicable to all elements, i.e.
> abbr, href, name, rel, rev, scope, size, src, type, and value.
> 
> I hadn't had the chance to ask the uf-discuss list about this, so now is a
> perfect time.   What about adding additional standard attributes to all
> elements.  Would it be helpful?

   No, because you don't understand what you're really developing. This
push for more global attributes in combination with the XHTML |rule|
attribute are an unconscious attempt to create a primitive semantic
styling language. It's a really complicated way of saying this:

| 

   Think about it:

| http://whatwg.org); rev-abbr: 'WHATWG';">
|   Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group
| 

   I'm not going to pretend I think this is a good idea, but you must
realize that the less you acknowledge that you're creating a semantic
styling mechanism, the worse your implementation of that mechanism will
be. I may not like the idea of semantics styling languages, but what I
like less is a series of half-a**ed unconscious attempts to create
semantics styling integrated into HTML.