[thelist] replace <b> with <strong> (why dont use b tag)]

Adam Fahy afahy at earthlink.net
Wed Jul 31 18:51:01 CDT 2002


Hassan Schroeder wrote:
> Adam Fahy wrote:

>> But almost everything *has* meaning, unless we're talking about
>> completely random action.
>
> ...because it's certainly not true on this planet.

"almost everything" isn't true?  I think you're arguing that there are
specific times when it may not be true (I walk through this below).


> The Director of MARCOM and the VP of Marketing put their pointy
> little heads together and decide the middle word of the name of
> the new product line will appear bold and red in all instances,
> including online.
>
> That certainly doesn't constitute "meaning" in my sense of the word,
> though it's not exactly random either :-)

Well, the product name has meaning itself: <product>Sprocket</product>.
  It would be nice if we could do something like:


<term title="xml">Extensible Markup Language</term>

term[title=xml]:nth-letter(1)
{
      text-transform: lowercase;
}
term[title=xml]:nth-letter(2)
{
      text-transform: uppercase;
}
term[title=xml]:nth-word(2)
{
      color: red;
      font-weight: bold;
}


We could however do something like:


<term>Extensible <inline class="brandRule">Markup</inline> Language</term>

term inline.brandRule
{
      color: red;
      font-weight: bold;
}


Although it's arguably just as meaningless as using <b> and styling that
similarly.

IMO <b> (for <bold>) is, however, misleading in this context (since it's
not just bold, but also a different color).  The reason it's bold is for
branding reasons, so perhaps you could imagine <b> stands for ~<brand>... =]


Could you argue that the second/"middle" word in the product name is
<em>phasized (or de<em>phasized)?  I think that factually, this is true
(I'd use <em>).


In any case, the more complicated these branding rules get, the less
useful <b>--in and of itself--may become.  What if books are decorated
one way, and software another?  What if decoration depends on the page
you're viewing; or the section the product is in; or whether it's in a
header, navigation, or inline?  At some point <b> may or may not still
be meaningful, depending on the situation.

Client needs should override structural purity, but most of the time you
can end-up fulfilling both.


-Adam




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