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Meh, I don't see the problem with "div soup". The only thing I agree with that's mentioned in the article is that at least you could tell where a specific tag s

by schammy 17y ago

Meh, I don't see the problem with "div soup". The only thing I agree with that's mentioned in the article is that at least you could tell where a specific tag started and ended. But whenever I nest div's more than a few levels deep, I always leave comments in my code for the closing tags to state what specific id/class they are closing. Is that really so hard? No, it's not. Also, as others have mentioned, having made-up tags littered throughout a site's HTML would lead to two problems: - For people learning HTML, you'd have no idea what tags are real and which are make-believe - It would be hard to update the HTML standard in the future without breaking a bunch of sites Both of those are serious problems from my POV.

AlisdairO 17y ago
It's a big problem for accessibility. Modern web pages are a nightmare for screen readers, for example. Tags which explicitly mark where the navigation is, amongst other things, would be a great help. I'm not sure that I see the value of just being able to define whatever tags you want, though. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
rbanffy 17y ago
"you could tell where a specific tag started and ended" Wouldn't a nice view-source mechanism with syntax and, perhaps, block highlighting, suffice? Wouldn't it also be nice to have it pretty-print the HTML and JavaScript of the page upon request?
kingkool68 17y ago
For people just learning HTML: I think they would have an easier time if they were taught that HTML tags mean something rather than perform a function. I know when I was learning HTML you would use tags to make a document look a certain way much like you would use MS Paint to draw a picture. The web has evolved and HTML takes care of describing what the content is. That's a big difference. Wouldn't the concept of "Use whatever tags you want to describe your content but here is a list of ones that are already reserved for other functions." be simple enough to pick up? It's the same idea with programming. Updating HTML standard: That's what the doctype could be for, for introducing new tags and functionality without breaking the old. Atleast that is what the doctype should be used for.

by schammy 17y ago

AlisdairO 17y ago

It's a big problem for accessibility. Modern web pages are a nightmare for screen readers, for example. Tags which explicitly mark where the navigation is, amongst other things, would be a great help. I'm not sure that I see the value of just being able to define whatever tags you want, though. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

rbanffy 17y ago

"you could tell where a specific tag started and ended" Wouldn't a nice view-source mechanism with syntax and, perhaps, block highlighting, suffice? Wouldn't it also be nice to have it pretty-print the HTML and JavaScript of the page upon request?

kingkool68 17y ago

For people just learning HTML: I think they would have an easier time if they were taught that HTML tags mean something rather than perform a function. I know when I was learning HTML you would use tags to make a document look a certain way much like you would use MS Paint to draw a picture. The web has evolved and HTML takes care of describing what the content is. That's a big difference. Wouldn't the concept of "Use whatever tags you want to describe your content but here is a list of ones that are already reserved for other functions." be simple enough to pick up? It's the same idea with programming. Updating HTML standard: That's what the doctype could be for, for introducing new tags and functionality without breaking the old. Atleast that is what the doctype should be used for.