RE: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
If I'm on the same track, then the spec you're speaking of is an xml schema (.xsd) file which takes care of defining your xml elements. etc? Kind regards, Frank M. Palinkas Microsoft M.V.P. - Windows Help M.C.P., M.C.T., M.C.S.E., M.C.D.B.A., A+ Senior Technical Communicator Web Standards Accessibility Designer website: http://frank.helpware.net email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member: Society for Technical Communications (S.T.C.) Guild of Accessible Web Designers (G.A.W.D.S.) Web Standards Group (W.S.G.) super group trading ltd. Sandhurst, Gauteng, South Africa website: http://www.supergroup.co.za Work: +27 011 523 4931 Home: +27 011 455 5287 Fax:+27 011 455 3112 Mobile: +27 074 109 1908 From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Breton Slivka Sent: Friday, 09 February, 2007 9:18 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics] On 09/02/2007, at 4:14 PM, Geoff Pack wrote: So nameJoe Blogs/name is meaningless with out a spec to tell me that 'name' means a name, while j79hfd98y28[EMAIL PROTECTED]*/j79hfd98y28 is meaningful if a spec says so? Absolutely correct. To a computer, any given string of characters holds exactly the same amount of meaning as any other given string of characters. It is the spec that defines how those characters should be handled. The spec adds meaning to a system which inherently has none. What if I write spec that says simply: The meanings of all my tags names are the same as the meanings defined in the Standard Oxford English Dictionary? What if I claim my spec to be the English language? You still have to clarify: 1. Which definition of any particular word are you using in the case of homonyms, and words with multiple related meanings? when you make an orange tag, are you referring to the color, or the fruit? 2. If you did make an orange tag, what would the contents of this tag mean? The attributes? 3. If you converted your format to another format, say, vCard, can you define a proceedure for doing so? Can a computer infer one? The spec defines what a computer is doing with the data. XML is not a magical file format, you still need to do the dirty work of teaching the computer what to do with it, and what it means. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
A schema is only part of the story. A schema can only help determine whether a given file is valid. It does not contain any instructions about what the data means. In fact, I don't believe that anyone has discovered a way to really teach a computer what any information means. It's all just programmers defining various things to do with the data. This is somewhat off the point though. Once we establish that meaning is something that only exists inside the human mind, and in the practical case, the mind of a particular software author, the problem becomes that of reliably deciphering the *same* meaning from the same body of data. So the goal of any reusable data format should be to reliably communicate this meaning to potential software authors. It is my point that this cannot reasonably be done with a set of XML tags alone. Nor would a schema do much good towards this end. To accomplish the goal of communicating meaning, one needs a body of Natural Language, in this case, English, with its words in the context of its native Grammar and Syntax. This body should clearly explain the purpose of the format in question, the meaning of each of its elements, an define procedures for dealing with these elements. It needs to be in a Natural language since human programmers are its target parsers. This body of Natural language is what I refer to as a Spec, which is an abbreviation for Specification. In that it specifies the meaning and nature of a particular format. However I believe it is not good enough for individual format authors to simply invent a format, and explain its meaning. The goal is not simply isolated storage and retrieval in the case of the internet, but reliable interchange. If we each individually author our own slightly different formats with overlapping goals, it becomes a problem to coherently exchange data between these various systems designed for divergent definitions of data. This is why standards are important. Not because they feel good, but because agreeing on specific formats and conforming to a single stated meaning for that format is the *only* path towards reliable data interchange. Everything else is just a wank. On 09/02/2007, at 6:57 PM, Frank Palinkas wrote: If I’m on the same track, then the “spec” you’re speaking of is an xml schema (.xsd) file which takes care of defining your xml elements. etc? Kind regards, Frank M. Palinkas Microsoft M.V.P. - Windows Help M.C.P., M.C.T., M.C.S.E., M.C.D.B.A., A+ Senior Technical Communicator Web Standards Accessibility Designer website: http://frank.helpware.net email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member: Society for Technical Communications (S.T.C.) Guild of Accessible Web Designers (G.A.W.D.S.) Web Standards Group (W.S.G.) super group trading ltd. Sandhurst, Gauteng, South Africa website: http://www.supergroup.co.za Work: +27 011 523 4931 Home: +27 011 455 5287 Fax:+27 011 455 3112 Mobile: +27 074 109 1908 From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Breton Slivka Sent: Friday, 09 February, 2007 9:18 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics] On 09/02/2007, at 4:14 PM, Geoff Pack wrote: So nameJoe Blogs/name is meaningless with out a spec to tell me that 'name' means a name, while j79hfd98y28[EMAIL PROTECTED]*/j79hfd98y28 is meaningful if a spec says so? Absolutely correct. To a computer, any given string of characters holds exactly the same amount of meaning as any other given string of characters. It is the spec that defines how those characters should be handled. The spec adds meaning to a system which inherently has none. What if I write spec that says simply: The meanings of all my tags names are the same as the meanings defined in the Standard Oxford English Dictionary? What if I claim my spec to be the English language? You still have to clarify: 1. Which definition of any particular word are you using in the case of homonyms, and words with multiple related meanings? when you make an orange tag, are you referring to the color, or the fruit? 2. If you did make an orange tag, what would the contents of this tag mean? The attributes? 3. If you converted your format to another format, say, vCard, can you define a proceedure for doing so? Can a computer infer one? The spec defines what a computer is doing with the data. XML is not a magical file format, you still need to do the dirty work of teaching the computer what to do with it, and what it means. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Dan Dorman wrote: [snip] Just because I feel headerone or mysupercoolheadinglevela1abeachfrontavenue is a better way to specify a heading than h1, is it reasonable to expect a browser maker to cater to my linguistic whim? And by extension, to anyone's linguistic whim? Browsers don't handle any random tags, browsers work with a previously defined subset. That's just how they work. Atom feeds don't accept any old tags, either. OpenOffice.org documents, though they be XML, handle only a specific set of tags. I'm sensing a pattern. [snip] I'm going back to my original wishlist of yesterday: Wouldn't it be nice if we could get browsers to interpret ^ (or something) as meaning 'div id=' (and something else for 'class='). Then we could have, xml style code, such as: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder MUCH more readable, and encouraging for semantic coding/markup? :-) -- Bob www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Designer wrote: I'm going back to my original wishlist of yesterday: Wouldn't it be nice if we could get browsers to interpret ^ (or something) as meaning 'div id=' (and something else for 'class='). Then we could have, xml style code, such as: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder No. Not only would that not be backwards compatible, but is absolutely no better than writing a regular XML document with the same tag names (excluding the ^ characters). In fact, such a syntax would just encourage authors to use div for absolutely everything, resulting in an extreme cases of divitis. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
This is *excellent*! Can I quote you, or will you make it publicly available? Andrew 109b SE 4th Av Gainesville FL 32601 Cell: 352-870-6661 http://www.andrewmaben.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions. On Feb 9, 2007, at 3:34 AM, Breton Slivka wrote: A schema is only part of the story. A schema can only help determine whether a given file is valid. It does not contain any instructions about what the data means. In fact, I don't believe that anyone has discovered a way to really teach a computer what any information means. It's all just programmers defining various things to do with the data. This is somewhat off the point though. Once we establish that meaning is something that only exists inside the human mind, and in the practical case, the mind of a particular software author, the problem becomes that of reliably deciphering the *same* meaning from the same body of data. So the goal of any reusable data format should be to reliably communicate this meaning to potential software authors. It is my point that this cannot reasonably be done with a set of XML tags alone. Nor would a schema do much good towards this end. To accomplish the goal of communicating meaning, one needs a body of Natural Language, in this case, English, with its words in the context of its native Grammar and Syntax. This body should clearly explain the purpose of the format in question, the meaning of each of its elements, an define procedures for dealing with these elements. It needs to be in a Natural language since human programmers are its target parsers. This body of Natural language is what I refer to as a Spec, which is an abbreviation for Specification. In that it specifies the meaning and nature of a particular format. However I believe it is not good enough for individual format authors to simply invent a format, and explain its meaning. The goal is not simply isolated storage and retrieval in the case of the internet, but reliable interchange. If we each individually author our own slightly different formats with overlapping goals, it becomes a problem to coherently exchange data between these various systems designed for divergent definitions of data. This is why standards are important. Not because they feel good, but because agreeing on specific formats and conforming to a single stated meaning for that format is the *only* path towards reliable data interchange. Everything else is just a wank. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Lachlan Hunt wrote: Designer wrote: I'm going back to my original wishlist of yesterday: Wouldn't it be nice if we could get browsers to interpret ^ (or something) as meaning 'div id=' (and something else for 'class='). Then we could have, xml style code, such as: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder No. Not only would that not be backwards compatible, but is absolutely no better than writing a regular XML document with the same tag names (excluding the ^ characters). In fact, such a syntax would just encourage authors to use div for absolutely everything, resulting in an extreme cases of divitis. Lachlan, I didn't mean instead of, I meant as well as - so surely that wouldn't be backwards incompatible? Also, I don't get your reasoning about divitis: surely the same criticism could be levelled at the xml conversion route? The level of the coding is, as now, dependent upon the semantic skill/expertise of the coder. It would be better (i my view) because all html/xhtml coders could do it in notepad (or whatever), and not have to get involved in server transformations and all that stuff. Some folk seem to be suggesting that the xml route is a bit of a headache . . . -- Bob www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Breton Slivka wrote: [everything that needed explaining] Brilliant, Breton. If people could just read that post properly we could kill the thread here and now. Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Sure, so long as you use the version with minor punctuation corrections below. On 09/02/2007, at 11:49 PM, Andrew Maben wrote: This is *excellent*! Can I quote you, or will you make it publicly available? Andrew 109b SE 4th Av Gainesville FL 32601 Cell: 352-870-6661 http://www.andrewmaben.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions. On Feb 9, 2007, at 3:34 AM, Breton Slivka wrote: A schema is only part of the story. A schema can only help determine whether a given file is valid. It does not contain any instructions about what the data means. In fact, I don't believe that anyone has discovered a way to really teach a computer what any information means. It's all just programmers defining various things to do with the data. This is somewhat off the point though. Once we establish that meaning is something that only exists inside the human mind, and in the practical case, the mind of a particular software author, the problem becomes that of reliably deciphering the *same* meaning from the same body of data. So the goal of any reusable data format should be to reliably communicate this meaning to potential software authors. It is my point that this cannot reasonably be done with a set of XML tags alone. Nor would a schema do much good towards this end. To accomplish the goal of communicating meaning, one needs a body of Natural Language, in this case, English, with its words in the context of its native Grammar and Syntax. This body should clearly explain the purpose of the format in question, the meaning of each of its elements, an define procedures for dealing with these elements. It needs to be in a Natural language since human programmers are its target parsers. This body of Natural language is what I refer to as a Spec, which is an abbreviation for Specification, in that it specifies the meaning and nature of a particular format. However I believe it is not good enough for individual format authors to simply invent a format, and explain its meaning. The goal is not simply isolated storage and retrieval in the case of the internet, but reliable interchange. If we each individually author our own slightly different formats with overlapping goals, it becomes a problem to coherently exchange data between the various systems designed for divergent definitions of data. This is why standards are important. Not because they feel good, but because agreeing on specific formats and conforming to a single stated meaning for that format is the *only* path towards reliable data interchange. Everything else is just a wank. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On 2/8/07, Geoff Pack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Div doesn't have any semantics, it's a structural element only. And since when does structure not have meaning? I don't have to read any dictionary or the spec to agree with you Geoff. Structure in and of itself IS semantic to an extent. Structure allows us to understand such concepts as beginning and ending, internal organization, and compartmentalization. I'm not up to speed on a lot of the proposed specifications, but I can still see a use for both section and div that might be /slightly/ more semantic than either alone... section id=sidebar div id=nav nl liHome/li liAbout/li liContact/li /nl /div div id=login form.../form /div div id=sponsors ul liChuck Norris/li liJack Bauer/li /ul div /section This would tend to convey a page section (the side bar) that's been divided into 3 smaller portions, hence the division tags. Obviously, you could do all of this with just divisions, just sections, or neither. Together, however, they might have a little more meaning than alone. Is it a huge advance in semantics? I don't think so, but I would eventually take advantage of it were it implemented and supported. -- Best regards, Mike Wilson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Mike Wilson wrote: section id=sidebar div id=nav nl liHome/li liAbout/li liContact/li /nl /div div id=login form.../form /div div id=sponsors ul liChuck Norris/li liJack Bauer/li /ul div /section This would tend to convey a page section (the side bar) that's been divided into 3 smaller portions, hence the division tags. Obviously, you could do all of this with just divisions, just sections, or neither. Together, however, they might have a little more meaning than alone. Is it a huge advance in semantics? I don't think so, but I would eventually take advantage of it were it implemented and supported. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get browsers to interpret ^ (or something) as meaning 'div id=' (and something else for 'class='). Then we could have, xml style code, such as: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder MUCH more readable, and encouraging for semantic coding/markup? Bob www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Designer wrote: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder Looks like the current proposal for HTML 5 to me (except it doesn't have ^). Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Isn't XHTML2 the one being endorsed by W3C and not HTML5? HTML5 is being formulated at WHATWG, AFAIK, On 2/8/07, Barney Carroll [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am a bigger fan of XHTML 2, from what I have seen - it seems to me more like a sober re-design of HTML with the benefit of hindsight. HTML 5, on the other hand, seems to be more about making a huge list of specific elements to tag on to HTML. Of course, the problem is that the full potential of XHTML 2 wouldn't be backward compatible - while HTML 5 would simply have loads of convoluted objects that might not render. To bring back the dead horse, it seems to me that HTML 5 would completely re-legitimise HR/, probably along with PICTURE OF A BLACK DOG and THAT BIT AT THE TOP OF MY PAGE. I'm exaggerating, but I'm very cynical of the notion of just adding specifics. Of course, I suppose it was people with this kind of mindset who over saw the genocide of tables, and other objects with highly specific properties. How much is there to gain from things like CALENDAR? Should we be complicating things, or simplifying them? At the end of the day it's pretty moot because HTML 5 is W3 and Microsoft endorsed, and XHTML isn't. Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- Aja Lorenzo T Lapus : Freelance Web Developer Home / Web log : http://www.ajalapus.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Designer wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if we could get browsers to interpret ^ (or something) as meaning 'div id=' (and something else for 'class='). Then we could have, xml style code, such as: ^pageborder ^content blah blah /content /pageborder MUCH more readable, and encouraging for semantic coding/markup? Well, isn't this just the same as using XML and XSLT? Why use html5 or xhtml2 when you can just write your own xml files, using whatever semantic structure you want, and just tranform it into html 4.01 in the browser? For example: ?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8? ?xml-stylesheet type=text/xsl href=document.xsl? document metadata.../metadata header title.../title logo/ menu.../menu /header content section h.../h p.../p ... /section section h.../h p.../p p.../p ... /section /content footer navigation/navigation copyright/copyright ... /footer /document cheers, Geoff == The information contained in this email and any attachment is confidential and may contain legally privileged or copyright material. It is intended only for the use of the addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are not permitted to disseminate, distribute or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. The ABC does not represent or warrant that this transmission is secure or virus free. Before opening any attachment you should check for viruses. The ABC's liability is limited to resupplying any email and attachments == *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On Thu, Feb 08, 2007 at 03:49:00PM +, Designer wrote: Forgive my complete lack of knowledge here, but can you (or someone) point me to details on where I can just transform it into html 4.01 (or xhtml) in the browser? It basically boils down to: 1. Learn XSLT 2. Write a transformation for your markup into HTML 3. Serve your XML as application/xml and put a stylesheet directive in it ... but don't do that. Clients that support HTML (which include GoogleBot) are far more common then clients that support XSLT (which doesn't, last time I checked). It's a serious question - I'd love to code/markup in xml. That could be reasonable. You could apply your XSLT via a publishing tool / on your webserver and serve up regular HTML to the client. -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Hi, On 2/8/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't have to read any dictionary or the spec to agree with you Geoff. Structure in and of itself IS semantic to an extent. I think you are taking that too far - imagine trying to create the look of a newspaper on the web, with blocks of text that break off at specific points to continue in the next column, where the blocks themselves are more or less randomly distributed. Does the end of one DIV in that case tell you anything whatsoever about the content? Often it isn't even the end of a word! If I were trying to create the /look/ of anything, I'd be more concerned the CSS than the markup, but to answer your main question, I think the markup can tell us a lot about the document itself. The content may be represented visually as columns, but in the markup I can easily understand the relationship: div id=foo pfoo/p pfoo/p pfoo/p /div Regardless of how you present this example visually--as a single column or as three columns, I can easily see these paragraphs are somehow directly related. Through the use of the section tag combined with ID's you could expand that meaning. Simply, it conveys something about the document. The physical structure of a page will often be entirely different to the logical structure This is true, of course, but at the end of the day both versions still have some meaning, depending on context. -- Best regards, Mike Wilson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On 8 Feb 2007, at 15:49:00, Designer wrote: Forgive my complete lack of knowledge here, but can you (or someone) point me to details on where I can just transform it into html 4.01 (or xhtml) in the browser? It's a serious question - I'd love to code/markup in xml. http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt Enjoy :-) On the other hand, browser support is fairly restricted and can be buggy, especially if you plan to use any DOM Scripting/Ajax type stuff. For real-world usage, you're better off doing the transformation on the server. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Fitzsimons http://www.nickfitz.co.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
-Original Message- From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Wilson snip The physical structure of a page will often be entirely different to the logical structure This is true, of course, but at the end of the day both versions still have some meaning, depending on context. You must be drunk too, if you are agreeing with me! (Apparently.) The example that I was trying to describe went more like: div id=block1 div id=col1 pPara 1/p pStart of Para 2 ... /div div id=col2 end of para 2/p pfoo/p /div /div Appearing as: Para 1 end of para2 Start of Para 2... foo Mike *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Appearing as: Para 1 end of para2 Start of Para 2... foo This is what CSS is for: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200702/new_css_properties_in_safari/ Regards, Rimantas -- http://rimantas.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Nick Fitzsimons wrote: On the other hand, browser support is fairly restricted and can be buggy, especially if you plan to use any DOM Scripting/Ajax type stuff. Well, yes, but it's a lot better than XHTML 2 support ;) For real-world usage, you're better off doing the transformation on the server. Yes, for now. But wouldn't it be easier for all us if the browsers just improved their handling of xml, instead of worrying about html5 and xhtml2? BTW, W3Schools has a basic introduction: http://w3schools.com/ cheers, Geoff == The information contained in this email and any attachment is confidential and may contain legally privileged or copyright material. It is intended only for the use of the addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are not permitted to disseminate, distribute or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. The ABC does not represent or warrant that this transmission is secure or virus free. Before opening any attachment you should check for viruses. The ABC's liability is limited to resupplying any email and attachments == *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On Fri, Feb 09, 2007 at 09:54:46AM +1100, Geoff Pack wrote: Yes, for now. But wouldn't it be easier for all us if the browsers just improved their handling of xml, instead of worrying about html5 and xhtml2? No, since HTML expresses known semantics and random-XML doesn't. While you can style it, there are more clients then those which are visual. BTW, W3Schools has a basic introduction: http://w3schools.com/ Given the quality of their guides to subjects I know better, I wouldn't trust their introduction to anything. -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
1. Learn XSLT 2. Write a transformation for your markup into HTML 3. Serve your XML as application/xml and put a stylesheet directive in it people are dreaming ... when you have to deal with user-created content and unknown character sets (especially when you are trying to run a site catering to lots of different countries) the strictness of most xml parsers and lack of decent tools for character set detection and conversion causes too many problems. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On 2/8/07, Geoff Pack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not an expert at any of this, btw. What do XHTML2 and HTML5 give us that we can't do with XML and CSS? Corporate support, to a degree. -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On 09/02/2007, at 2:01 PM, Geoff Pack wrote: David Dorward wrote: Geoff Pack wrote: Yes, for now. But wouldn't it be easier for all us if the browsers just improved their handling of xml, instead of worrying about html5 and xhtml2? No, since HTML expresses known semantics and random-XML doesn't. Surely the semantic meaning is in the actual tag names, not just the fact that they are standardised. It shouldn't matter as long as it's understandable. Anyway, you can always re-use as many of the HTML tags as you want, and make up your own when you need to. While you can style it, there are more clients then those which are visual. You can add multiple CSS stylesheets to an XML document, just like HTML. Or use can use XSL and transfrom the document into an HTML file with multiple CSS stylesheets. I'm not an expert at any of this, btw. What do XHTML2 and HTML5 give us that we can't do with XML and CSS? cheers, Geoff Semantic meaning is meaning in context, and it's something more complicated than can be contained in just the dictionary definition of a word that you use in a tag name. It doesn't make sense to say that semantics are included in tag names. The grand example of this is layed out in the recent debate about the hr tag. But, even if you made the (spurious) assumption that semantic meaning can be included in a tag name, it would still require a human to produce the semantics from the tag name. This is okay in one off applications, but in broader applications like search engines, You can't make an assumption like a menu tag will contain information about a navigation menu. That name will contain a person's name, etc. Semantics is more than just the individual words. It's the meaning of the word in a specific context. XHTML2 and HTML5 give us more than just set of named tags, they give us a set of agreed upon semantics for those tags, which goes beyond simply their names. This is essential for broad applications of machine parsing. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Geoff Pack wrote: David Dorward wrote: No, since HTML expresses known semantics and random-XML doesn't. Surely the semantic meaning is in the actual tag names, not just the fact that they are standardised. It shouldn't matter as long as it's understandable. Anyway, you can always re-use as many of the HTML tags as you want, and make up your own when you need to. No, the semantics come from its definition, not its tag name. If a spec defines an element with the tag name j79hfd98y28 to be for marking up a person's name, then that's what it is. The tag name is just an opaque string that doesn't affect the semantics in any way. It just helps authors to have meaningful and memorable tag names. However, if you create your own generic XML document, using tag names like name and address, then those elements don't inherently have any semantics at all. Although you may define your own semantics, unless those semantics become known by others, the elements are meaningless to everyone else, and your semantics are totally useless. Semantics only become useful when there are tools that make use of them in a useful way. The semantics in HTML documents are useful because they are widely understood and implemented. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
On 2/9/07, Geoff Pack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: No, the semantics come from its definition, not its tag name. If a spec defines an element with the tag name j79hfd98y28 to be for marking up a person's name, then that's what it is. The tag name is just an opaque string that doesn't affect the semantics in any way. It just helps authors to have meaningful and memorable tag names. However, if you create your own generic XML document, using tag names like name and address, then those elements don't inherently have any semantics at all. Although you may define your own semantics, unless those semantics become known by others, the elements are meaningless to everyone else, and your semantics are totally useless. Semantics only become useful when there are tools that make use of them in a useful way. The semantics in HTML documents are useful because they are widely understood and implemented. So nameJoe Blogs/name is meaningless with out a spec to tell me that 'name' means a name, while j79hfd98y28[EMAIL PROTECTED]*/j79hfd98y28 is meaningful if a spec says so? What if I write spec that says simply: The meanings of all my tags names are the same as the meanings defined in the Standard Oxford English Dictionary? What if I claim my spec to be the English language? I could then further claim my document is more widely understood (and implemented?) than HTML, simply because more people understand plain English than HTML. (I'm playing devil's advocate here, but only to show how absurd this is.) Welcome to web standards? -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Lachlan Hunt wrote: Semantics only become useful when there are tools that make use of them in a useful way. On 2/8/07, Geoff Pack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So nameJoe Blogs/name is meaningless with out a spec to tell me that 'name' means a name, while j79hfd98y28[EMAIL PROTECTED]*/j79hfd98y28 is meaningful if a spec says so? Read Lachlan's words carefully, Geoff. Using XML, you're free to define your own language with whatever tags you'd like. That doesn't mean there's any tool (e.g., web browser) that's going to be able to parse whatever tag in whatever language and apply semantic value to it. Just because I feel headerone or mysupercoolheadinglevela1abeachfrontavenue is a better way to specify a heading than h1, is it reasonable to expect a browser maker to cater to my linguistic whim? And by extension, to anyone's linguistic whim? Browsers don't handle any random tags, browsers work with a previously defined subset. That's just how they work. Atom feeds don't accept any old tags, either. OpenOffice.org documents, though they be XML, handle only a specific set of tags. I'm sensing a pattern. What if I write spec that says simply: The meanings of all my tags names are the same as the meanings defined in the Standard Oxford English Dictionary? What if I claim my spec to be the English language? I could then further claim my document is more widely understood (and implemented?) than HTML, simply because more people understand plain English than HTML. You might be able to get away with handling the presentation issues with CSS, but that's not going to help the semantics of your document. Human readability, unfortunately, does not translate to machine readability. If machines were completely capable of parsing natural language, we wouldn't be programming in Ruby, we'd be programming in Japanese. (I'm playing devil's advocate here, but only to show how absurd this is.) Yep. Love, Dan Dorman *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
Technically, you can use the new tags today, and style them with CSS. The only drawback is your document won't validate. The only thing that needs to change is the DTD you validate against. I've seen examples of fully xhtml 2.0 sites working in IE6 via javascript and css. We're just waiting for it to stop being a moving target. -Breton On 08/02/2007, at 1:25 PM, Geoff Pack wrote: How long until the changes are implemented in most browsers and you can safely stop using the obsolete tags? The browsers are going to have to support the old ones anyway, since no-one is going to re-write all those old docs. Is it really worth the wait and the effort? *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] is html done? [was semantics]
enough for pretty much everything we need to do with it. It's done. If you want more semantics, use xml and xsl. more machine readability can a good thing check out microformats.org - this is something people are already using in the real world to mark up stuff in a way so that machines can read it too (and you can use microformats in ordinary html as well as in xhtml) *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
