On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Geoff Pack wrote: > > Why does the HTML5 spec say "The div element represents nothing at all"? > [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-div] > > Div clearly stands for 'division', as was specified in the HTML 3.2 > spec: "DIV elements can be used to structure HTML documents as a > hierarchy of divisions." [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#div] > > So what gives - why is everyone so keen to claim that 'div' is > meaningless? And why so keen on 'section', which is pretty much > synonymous in this context.
<section> and <div> have very different semantics. <section> describes a section of a document, e.g. a chapter or a scene. <div> is a generic element used for grouping and structure when there's nothing better to use. If we said it represented a "division", then there would be nothing left over to represent "nothing". For example, people want to do things like: <div class="chart-control"> <div class="chart-panel"> <div class="toolbar"> <div class="zoom-control"> ... </div> <div class="dates"> ... </div> <div class="legend"> ... </div> </div> <div class="chart"> ... </div> </div> <div class="timeline"> <div class="background"> ... </div> <div class="active-indicator"> ... </div> <div class="scroller-control"> ... </div> </div> </div> ...to represent something like the stock chart widget on Google Finance. These aren't divisions. They're nothing, just places to hang styles from because HTML isn't good enough to natively have a stock chart control. On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Dave Hodder wrote: > > Personally I'd describe it more along the lines of: > > "The div element is a generic way of representing document structure, > but offers no further semantics. Where appropriate, elements with more > specific meanings (such as section or aside) should be used instead. Use > of the div element may be appropriate for extended features not covered > by this specification, for example a new type of user interface > control." I don't think the <div>s in the example above are "representing document structure" in anything more than the most technical of senses. On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I'm still not clear to me how <section/> is anything more than a <div/>. > HTML4 said: "The DIV and SPAN elements, in conjunction with the id and > class attributes, offer a generic mechanism for adding structure to > documents" (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-DIV). > Isn't that the very thing that <section/> is trying to do? Provide > structure? I don't see that it offers anything over and above what > <div/>s do now, except for confusing developers as to which is more > appropriate to use. The difference is that <section> elements appear in the table of contents, basically. On Fri, 29 Feb 2008, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: > > In HTML5, the <hx> hierarchy is explicitly ignored. Instead, they're > all treated the same. The actual heading level is determined by > <section> nesting. (This isn't completely true, but it is true that the rank of headers only affects headers withint the same sectioning element.) > Question to others: I think it is somewhat unclear what exactly the > correct semantics are for <section> when it is encountered outside of an > <article>. Since <section> is the most generic of the sectioning tags, > there is a definite risk of it falling into the same hole that <div> is > in. Where exactly should <section> be used when outside of an article, > and when should we just default to the <div>? <article> isn't needed if there's only one article on the page, or if the page is part of a large set of documents forming a single "article" or book-equivalent. On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, Geoff Pack wrote: > > After following the discussion, I�m still not any clearer about the > difference between sections and divs. But no matter. What I�m bothered > about is not which to use where, but the description in the spec. I > think it should be changed from: > > �The div element represents nothing at all.� > > To something like: > > "The div element represents a document division. It can (also) > be used as a generic block-level element" If something represents both A and not-A, then it represents nothing, effectively, since you can't tell which meaning is being used at any one time. Hence, the <div> element represents nothing. > Similarly, the definition of the span element should be changed from: > > "The span element doesn't mean anything on its own..." > > To: > > "The span element represents an arbitrary span of text." The text itself represents the arbitrary span of text. The <span> element doesn't add anything to the meaning of the document on its own. That's what the spec is saying. > Strangely enough, both the <b> and <i> elements begin: > > "The .. element represents a span of text..." Both of those sections immediately elaborate about the special characteristics that they introduce to those spans. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'