zero point nine

What’s Wrong With HTML? #

Posted on: November 7, 2006 - 5:57 pm

This call for input from the HTML working group piqued my interest.

The WHATWG needs to hear from you and wants to know what you think about HTML.

So what issues does an amateur like me have when it comes to HTML? I mean I try to follow the guidelines, I understand (kinda) why standard markup and sound semantics are important, and I am a convert to the accessibility cause, even if my efforts don’t really show it. And I’ve been working with HTML for a good few years now. So surely there must be some problems encountered along the way that these folks could help solve.

The first thing that struck me is my (over)use of div tags. I feel sometimes that the tables based layout has been replaced by the equally monstrous div and span based layout. Thing is, though it may be possible that changes to HTML could alleviate this, the root problem is really the lack of CSS support in browsers. I’m hoping that as features of CSS get wider adoption, allowing us to use child selectors for example, this problem might just fade away.

Second issue I thought of. Actually I don’t really have much more than a basic idea of this one, but it relates to the splitting of function from content and maintaining that content after the website dies. So for example, if I had an important document to share online, I could mark that up on it’s own and upload it to a server. The document should be able to live independently, or within the page it was designed for.

Sound familiar? I imagine this was one of the reasons frames were first developed. Obviously frames failed but the reason they were developed persists. (I think the people working on microformats might understand, though I’m not sure I understand microformats.)

That’s all for now.

(The original request was cross posted on The Web Standards Project, Lachy’s Log, Molly.com and 456 Berea Street.)