Re: HTML is a declarative mark-up language

Ian Hickson 2009-01-29 03.12:
> On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>> If I ask a simple question, like:
>>
>>    what does the name attribute on the "a" (anchor) element mean?
     [...]
>> there is apparently no "name" attribute for <a> and, further, that <a>
>> doesn't even mean anchor any more.  Brilliant.
> 
> It represents a hyperlink; is that no the same thing?

"Little Webmaster, here is a little spoon for you. Open up, and 
take it in: HTML 5 was a fresh start from scratch. We did not look 
at HTML 4, and you shouldn't either."

What the "a" element means is not attemted explained in the HTML 5 
draft.  Wheras HTML 4 talks about "destination anchor" and "source 
anchor" - it incorporates the meaning of the element name when it 
talks about it.

Thus, as Roy gets us to see: the HTML 4 spec will be an important 
document for people who are interested in understanding HTML with 
their hearth. Browser vendors can perhaps master the Web by 
mastering HTML 5. But authors might have a worse time.

The poetry of meaningful tag names - a feature that many markup 
learners appreciate - is hardly present in HTML 5. Perhaps, now 
that everything is "from scratch", it doesn't mean 'anchor' 
element anymore? The answer will perhaps be written in a HTML 5 
the Markup Language Guide?

> What I _am_ saying is 
> that it's quite possible to write a spec that defines everything in one 
> document, just like specs always have done.

Creating poetry and defining everything are perhaps opposite 
things - like the difference between *creating* a whole and 
*covering* the whole.

> I'm sure there are examples of attributes that aren't defined in terms 
> that really help authors today (Lachy on IRC suggested target="" 

How nice that HTML 4 exists for  them.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2009 05:50:24 UTC