[thelist] Non-Deprecated HTML Presentational Elements (was, C SS Font Sizes)

Calum I Mac Leod calum at ciml.co.uk
Wed Feb 28 09:58:08 CST 2001


Martin:
> * Deprecating them wouldn't immediately stop all the browsers in the world
>   using them, only new browsers (maybe) that are early enough in their
devt
>   cycle

Even new browsers should support deprecated elements (where relevant).  Even
the evils of FONT face and color won't be marked "Obsolete" for some time.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/conform.html#h-4.1
  "User agents should continue to support deprecated elements for
   reasons of backward compatibility."

I also don't go along with Joe's argument (that W3C spec's are kludges), not
because it's not true (it is, just look at the conflicts between SGML and
HTML), but because HTML 4 Strict and Transitional are supposed to allow us
all the horrid old presentational HTML stuff in Transitional, if we want it,
so why have them in Strict?

The only reason that I find remotely compelling is Jukka Korpela's in
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1997Dec/0040.html

  "So a revised specification of HTML should first give us structured
   ways of expressing such things before it could deprecate the I
   element."

I agree that there could be more semantic markup in HTML (though I'm not
convinced it's a good idea), but I don't like the argument that we keep
presentational HTML.  Web structuralists don't approve of BLOCKQUOTE for
indentation, so why go along with I and B for structure?  We probably have
thousands of pages with <B>Border</B><I>Net</I> in them, yet the bold and
italics are nothing more than typeface changes.

Martin's pointed out that <span lang="fr"> is more than adequate.  It's just
a pity that the browsers aren't.  Even then, there doesn't seem to be much
answer to how "the plural of <I>ox</I> is <I>oxen</I>" should be marked up.

James, thanks for the link.  I also find the arguments there pretty
unconvincing, but it's always nice to find a little nugget of WWW history.

Calum
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