Making up tags – WHY is it wrong?

[joshuanhibbert]

@ChristopherBurton SINCE WHEN‽

[chrisburton]

If you want to read arguments on using tables, feel free to search it.

[Johann]

In practice, they are used to list a lot of stuff with everything still being aligned, properly. Which of course only makes sense for tabular data… which 99% of the data on the web is though, it’s just that usually we have no use to display them that way.

Consider this thread: is it a table, or a list? Maybe that’s MySQL speaking, but in my mind, that’s a table that doesn’t look like one. Each post has author, content, permalink, etc. When each listed iten has the same fields as the others, that’s a table, a spreadsheet, whatever you want to call it, and however you want to dress it up.

People see differences where there aren’t any real ones. If instead of nesting divs you use unordered list items that get coerced into not looking like the bulleted lists they were “supposed to be”, you’re not adding one shred of information. Children are grouped by the parent they belong to. All of them, always. Essentially, that’s using ul and li instead of having to give divs classes, or the selectors having to taking more descendants into account. Nothing semantic about it at all, and that people would flame me for pointing that out, doesn’t make them correct. A lot of this posing around semantics is built on sand, really. A lot of stuff has good reasons, yeah, but people don’t seem to know them. And if you mistake my refuting of BS as advocating making up tags (see your table guy analogy), that’s yours ^^

also:

http://jsfiddle.net/NbpWe/

Sure, there are a billion ways to center stuff, and I might yet find a nicer one. But I was actually lying before: until I found out about the values for the display property, I did use tables for layout, that is, to get stuff to actually center. (I still have loads of that around, and will change it when I come across it — but until then I consider that bait for people who obsess about things that don’t actually matter :P)

And none of the “cleaner” ways are actually remotely clean, even the ones that don’t work in IE… as always, doing just what you’re supposed to do doesn’t get you very far: you can have a semantic, clean site, or a good looking one. That is rapidly changing, but to pretend the web is semantic more than not is hilarious to me, sorry.

[joshuanhibbert]

@ChristopherBurton Perhaps my sarcasm wasn’t obvious enough :P

[Johann]

“Perhaps my sarcasm wasn’t obvious enough :P”

I catched that alright. Go figure :P

[chrisburton]

Josh – Didn’t catch it, sorry. I’m not sure if you were around for that “table guy”, if you were, you know what I mean.

Johann – . I feel you, man. I know what it’s like when you’re wrong but you wanna be right.

[Johann]

@ChristopherBurton

“I feel you, man. I know what it’s like when you’re wrong but you wanna be right.”

Heh, the irony. Weak ad-hominems don’t make arguments, and so far that’s the arguments I get. And flat out incorrect statements about semantics, which I refuted — care to refute that in turn? No? So why comment, with that table guy bs for example? Heh… I know what it feels like, awww… alas, arguments you don’t really seem to have.

And I hate to break it to you: tables do exist for layout. They exist to make tables of data look in a way that things are spatially related to which they are logically related to, without having to have any knowledge of the dimensions of the cells before hand. Sure, they are abused to layout on top of that, but the reason they came to exist IS layout (of tabular data). And they do what they do just fine, other elements don’t.

I’ve seen phpBB skins that use definition lists for thread title, post count etc. It’s just silly. That is tabular data, and recreating it without tables doesn’t work half as well… but I bet you, someone felt as if they were being very semantic when they did that :P Prolly even mentioned to someone that they’re now “not using tables for layout” anymore, heh. Whatever makes people happy I guess, but I find it hard to keep a straight face with some of that stuff.

[jamygolden]

Browsers often display invalid HTML as valid HTML just fine. The only problem with this is that the browsers don’t know what to do with it. So unexpected behavior will probably occur.

HTML is a spec that helps things display consistently across browsers, so follow it or don’t. Use javascript to make your markup work, or don’t. It’s just a matter of doing things they way they should be done for consistency.

I’ve got an idea for you, Johann. You know what I’m sick of? Closing tags. Why don’t you write a script that would turn this:

Foo

Into this:

Foo

I mean, it’s less HTML right? The script can work across all browsers.

Actually… Why Have all that unnecessary junk. Lets make the script turn this:

div{

span{

Foo

}

}

Into this:

Foo

It will be horrible for accessibility, but whatever, less bytes = #winning, amirite?

You know what, Johann, I have a serious question to ask you. And this question is as sincere as your OP:
Why not create a script, that turns this:

Foo

Into this:

Foo

That way you can have your cake and eat it too. Develop with custom tags, output valid HTML. You can create an ant built or something that would turn that into actual HTML. Great for accessibility and great for you. (I’m not saying only use divs, you can create rules to make lists, etc. You get what I mean: HTML out of your own markup – Example: Less)

HTML is HTML. People aren’t complaining that javascript should just BE jQuery, they make javascript work for them and jQuery emerged.

So stop complaining about the HTML standard and use it to work for you.

[thomas]

@Johann

Apparently, I touched a nerve. If I offended you or sounded condescending, I apologize; that wasn’t my intent. I do think that you have a misunderstanding of some concepts, though.

First of all, a div is a literal “division” of content — not all tags carry that meaning, even if they do separate content from other content. Here’s an example:

Heading


Content









…


…

Just because div has been often abused and used strictly for styling or scripting, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have meaning, even if that meaning may be obscure to many people. HTML 5 is trying to remedy that and actually has changed the role of div, but it’s not a perfect process, and will take some trial and error. Still, nit-picking about tags such as <div> and <span> doesn’t change the overall argument that the reason you don’t make up tags is that not all technologies will understand what you mean. I’m not sure how I could have made that point clearer. It appears that that isn’t very important to you, and at this point, I doubt you’ll change your mind.

If all you’re looking for is what you call “practical advice,” then you’re not likely to find any, because I assume you mean standard, run-of-the-mill websites, when you refer to “practical.” The Web will continue to evolve beyond our current browsers and semantics in markup will become more important. The reason I say “don’t mess that up,” is because you’d be holding that process back. Of course, you’re free to do what you think is best for your own projects from a “practical” view, but we “theoretical” people would appreciate it if you didn’t downplay the importance of standard elements.

[Johann]

@jamy_za

“So stop complaining about the HTML standard and use it to work for you.”

Heh. I’m not complaining, I’m just responding to strawmen, and why not. If you make assumptions about me, why wouldn’t I feel entitled to respond? See how that works? I asked rather simple questions. So far none of you has been able to answer what the semantical difference is between div=”classname” and classname. Because there is none.

Oh, and I wouldn’t expect browsers to do *anything* with void tags other than nest and style them — though the specs seem to suggest they should be completely ignored.

“Just because div has been often abused and used strictly for styling or scripting, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have meaning, even if that meaning may be obscure to many people.”

Look, either you flat out state the semantic meaning, or you save me repeating that. Or maybe address what I and others said about their actual semantic meaning. Obscure, lol. Ad-hominem city this is.

@thomas

First of all, a div is a literal “division” of content — not all tags carry that meaning, even if they do separate content from other content. Here’s an example:

Huh. In your example, tags do indeed separate content from other content — heading from paragraph for example.

HTML 5 is trying to remedy that and actually has changed the role of div

Has it? So what changed?

http://html5doctor.com/you-can-still-use-div/

“You should use [div] when there is no other more semantically appropriate element that suits your purpose. Its most common use will likely be for stylistic purposes — i.e., wrapping some semantically marked-up content in a CSS-styled container.”

Nothing changed. Nothing semantical about a div, nothing semantical about an unkown tag. The only difference is, being able to use unknown tags is using browser behaviour, not standards, and is therefore risky. But semantically? lol!

“but we “theoretical” people would appreciate it if you didn’t downplay the importance of standard elements.”

Right. Where I am doing the above? I simply said div and span are void of semantic meaning. That’s a fact, ask the w3c if you don’t believe me. They group content, which all nestable tags do. In other words, they do nothing. Now THAT is what I call actually paying attention to theory, instead of just mindlessly repeating. “tables should never be used for layout”, haha.

[chrisburton]

@Johann – I feel like you’re throwing a temper tantrum if someone disagrees with you. You’re simply a repeat of the “table guy”, not because of what he said but the way he said it. People are being negative with you because you’re being argumentative and it shows by you knowing exactly what I meant by “layout”. At this point you’re just trolling with your rhetoric.

[jamygolden]

Ok I’m closing this thread. Johann, you’ve ignored most of what people say and harp on seemingly random points.

Next time you open a thread, don’t act as if you have a question.

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