|Summary: why we don't need....
| CODE, KBD: redundant. Use SAMP.
| AU: too specific. apply attributes of all kinds to PERSON instead.
| ACRONYM, ABBREV: redundant. Use DFN.
| INS, DEL: too specific. apply attributes to P instead.
| S, U, BIG, SMALL: purely presentational markup. doesn't belong in HTML.
Agreed. Their structural value is very low, for writing a computer
manual people are probably better off using the docbook DTD anyway.
I'm not sure about INS and DEL. I've never found occasion to use them
myself, but if other people do, then replacing them by P seems too
weak. Without a style sheet the status of that P will not be clear.
|and i still wonder about:
| Q: too specific. are we going to mark up <PAREN>, <SENTENCE>, etc. also?
Q is actually useful, since it allows the designer to change the
quotes, depending on the language or local conventions:
He said: <Q>See this?</Q> - source
He said: "See this?" - simulated typewriter
He said: `See this?' - English 1
He said: ``See this?'' - English 2
He said: ,,See this?'' - Dutch
He said: <<See this?>> - French 1
He said: <See this?> - French 2
He said: >>See this?<< - German 1
He said: >See this?< - German 2
Changing the font (color, whatever) is another possibility. And, when
rendering the text to speech, it is possible to use a different voice.
All this can be done without a style sheet. Which is important, since
style sheets may be absent, (temporarily) inaccessible, or incomplete.
Btw. Q is very different from BQ (or BLOCKQUOTE). The latter is a
container for one or more paragraphs, the former is an inline
element. The quotes will look different as well, depending on the
design: BQ may have hanging punctuation, the quotes are often repeated
at the start of every P, a BQ can have an attribution (CREDIT).
Bert
PS. Using PAREN <remark>or REMARK</remark> may not be such bad idea.
PS. Using PAREN -- or REMARK -- may not be such bad idea.
PS. Using PAREN (or REMARK) may not be such bad idea.
PS. Using PAREN - or REMARK - may not be such bad idea.
PS. Using PAREN--or REMARK--may not be such bad idea.
PS. Using PAREN1) may not be such bad idea.
1) or REMARK
--
Bert Bos Alfa-informatica
<bert@let.rug.nl> Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
<http://www.let.rug.nl/~bert/> Postbus 716, NL-9700 AS GRONINGEN