From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Alternative input formats Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 16:52:06 +0900 Message-ID: <87lhmhi7kp.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <2815659.zRQ0WWWeRr@descartes> <20141205175810.GD3120@thyrsus.com> <87wq66ufyt.fsf@wanadoo.es> <87tx18vl0v.fsf@dod.no> <87iohnvh3m.fsf@dod.no> <877fy3lmm4.fsf@violet.siamics.net> <877fy3vcw4.fsf@dod.no> <8761dmkdsp.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87oardih7h.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1418111586 4244 80.91.229.3 (9 Dec 2014 07:53:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2014 07:53:06 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Steinar Bang , Stefan Monnier , Richard Stallman , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Mike Gerwitz Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 09 08:52:59 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XyFbO-0000vF-WD for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 09 Dec 2014 08:52:59 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:38271 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XyFbO-0004o6-Lz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 09 Dec 2014 02:52:58 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38603) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XyFay-0004na-DN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 09 Dec 2014 02:52:40 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XyFaq-00024l-N1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 09 Dec 2014 02:52:32 -0500 Original-Received: from shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.161]:42585) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XyFaq-00020f-DC; Tue, 09 Dec 2014 02:52:24 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 90AF71C38C9; Tue, 9 Dec 2014 16:52:06 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 4ADD81A2CFC; Tue, 9 Dec 2014 16:52:06 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87oardih7h.fsf@gnu.org> X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" acf1c26e3019 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.161 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:179531 Archived-At: Mike Gerwitz writes: > Stephen Turnbull wrote: > > Other than that we need faces, and I would suggest prohibiting EM (and > > I!) and STRONG (ditto B!) elements in favor of semantic markup on DIV > > and SPAN elements ('class="nextNode"' and the like). > > As was mentioned already, the whole purpose of these elements is to > provide semantics to a document; classes exist purely for styling > (and many JavaScript programs use them as metadata, though that > practice is being largely deprecated by HTML5 data attributes). > Instead, the `article' tag was introduced, along with many others, > to provide a standard document structure.[1] Sure. I think that's great for blogs and possibly for Wikipedia. However, as a non-expert in HTML5, what I worry is that the advantages of the *semantic* markup in Texinfo which is *tuned* to multi-targeted (media-wise) software manuals will be obscured by the standardization process of translating to HTML5. To recover them, you will have to use some extension technique, such as "class" attributes or "data attributes" (whatever they are). If the standard semantics are quite accurate for the elements used in Emacs manuals, fine, use the standard elements. But if they don't correspond quite accurately, I personally prefer a language that says what it means even if it's somewhat clumsy to read (remember, HTML is a *target* language for our documents, not a source language). Speaking of Texinfo markup semantics, that's one reason I'm not a big fan of plain text markup for this purpose. Sure, you can do it, but it requires additional annoying syntax in languages like Markdown and ReStructuredText. It's hardly prettier and *much* less convenient (for AUCTeX users) than Texinfo.