Re: Where are Fonts and Phrases allowed? [Was: HTML 2.0 Call for Review ]

Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
Message-id: <199406102041.NAA04401@rock>
From: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 13:41:54 PDT
In-Reply-To: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@oclc.org>
       "Re: Where are Fonts and Phrases allowed? [Was: HTML 2.0 Call for Review ]" (Jun 10,  4:28pm)
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Subject: Re: Where are Fonts and Phrases allowed? [Was: HTML 2.0 Call for Review ]
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Dan writes:
| Yes, there is the potential for confusion here.
| To clarify: we have several choices:
| 	"Implementations _must_ distinguish nested emphasis"
| 		(my opinion: bad idea. How many levels must they
| 			distinguish?)
| 	"Implementations _may_ distinguish nested levels"
| 		(my option: this is the way to go.
| 		We end up with the unfortunate situation where Joe
| 		uses nested emphasis and it works on browser X but not
| 		on browser Y, but given all the various style
| 		configuration mechanisms that are popping up, I don't
| 		see the value in prohibiting this.)

Quite clear to here; if an unfortunate situation would result,
let's avoid it.

| 	"Implementations _must not_ distinguish nested emphasis"
| 		(this is my 2nd choice.)

I'd say, define emphasis in such a way that nesting has no effect,
then if implementations were to render it differently it would
clearly be a mistake.  Or better yet, just disallow it in the 
DTD, if that's appropriate at this level.  HTML3.0 may go a
different way (Dave? is there nested emphasis in your latest
version?), but it we encourage divergent usage we'll be
creating trouble down the line, if only with engrained habits.

Regards,


-- 
Terry Allen  (terry@ora.com)
Editor, Digital Media Group
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Sebastopol, Calif., 95472