On Aug 17, 2005, at 4:39 AM, Julie Romanowski wrote:
On Aug 16, 2005, at 9:07 PM, Ben Curtis wrote:
That's a very curious thing for the W3C to publish. I am not
aware of any HTML standard in which b and i are deprecated. Can
anyone cite such a declaration?
...
Please look at the date of each document. The document listing the
items
as deprecated is the most recent.
HTML 4.01 Specification http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
cover.html#minitoc
W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999
XHTML(tm) 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second
Edition)
A Reformulation of HTML 4 in XML 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#defs
W3C Recommendation 26 January 2000, revised 1 August 2002
Modularization of XHTML(tm)
W3C Recommendation 10 April 2001
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/
XHTML(tm) 1.1 - Module-based XHTML
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/Overview.html#toc
W3C Recommendation 31 May 2001
HTML Techniques for WCAG 2.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/
W3C Working Draft 30 June 2005 (includes the information regarding
deprecated <b> and <i> tags)
Looking solely at the dates would lead people to believe that we
should currently be coding to XHTML2 specs, since that was most
recently updated, but that would be wrong. Dates are useful in
finding what spec is the most recent, but a spec is only a standard
once it reaches "recommendation" status. The HTML Techniques spec you
cite is a Working Draft, and they state in the prologue:
"Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement
by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be
updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other
than work in progress."
It's not a standard yet. It's important to recognize that standards
that are developed publicly will present a number of documents from
official sources that are not, in themselves, definitive. It's
important to cite the documents that are definitive, and only in the
manner that they claim to be definitive. For example, had the HTML
Techniques been a Recommendation, it would still be inappropriate to
cite this entry as a declaration of the deprecation of the b and i
elements (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/#em ). It's
inappropriate because the document is not intended to define the
state of elements, but only the techniques for using them.
"If the W3C misspoke..." Do you really believe that the W3C "misspoke"
because they have a working draft with change/updates to the current
HTML/XHTML recommendations?
Nothing can change or update a standard; only a new standard may be
adopted. The portion you quoted stated that b and i as elements were
deprecated in the HTML 4.01 and XHTML Recommendations. I have yet to
find anything that would indicate that this is true. Thus, the W3C
misspoke.
Now, that all said, I think that we're on pretty much the same side
on this issue. Edward also points out:
On Aug 16, 2005, at 11:51 PM, Edward Clarke wrote:
You are correct, it hasn't been 'officially' deprecated but as
visual tags
and not logical ones; CSS offers a better long term solution.
When there are only semantically inappropriate tags to use (e.g., the
"a" tag as the original poster had implemented), then I opt for
semantically empty tags, with a class applied, and the class is
styled. Some opt for the semantically empty <span> tag; I opt for the
semantically empty <b> tag. In both cases, they must be styled to suit:
b.bookTitle { font-weight:bold; }
If you treat the b or i tag (or any other valid markup) as
semantically empty, then treat it in your CSS as having no default
style. The only advantage is backwards compatibility with non-CSS
browsers. As a long term solution, one must keep in mind that the
declared doctype is just as much a part of the document as the other
tags in it. Therefore, if I were to convert the doctype to, say,
XHTML 2, then it would be just as easy to use XSLT to convert <span
class="bookTitle"> to something appropriate as to convert <b
class="bookTitle"> to the same thing. If your doctype states XHTML
1.0 Strict, then that's the standard it needs to conform to.
--
Ben Curtis : webwright
bivia : a personal web studio
http://www.bivia.com
v: (818) 507-6613
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