retooling and mental housecleaning

In yet another effort to update my practices, and clean out some mental
artifacts, and other residue (much dating back to the early 90's) I need
to reassess my html semantics. I find lots of articles on the subject.
The problem, as with almost anything I search, I am having a tough
time sifting through to determine what is current, and more importantly
what is actually good advice.

Any suggestions on a good starting point?

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:56:01 GMT
William Gill scribed:

> In yet another effort to update my practices, and clean out some mental
> artifacts, and other residue (much dating back to the early 90's) I need
> to reassess my html semantics. I find lots of articles on the subject.
> The problem, as with almost anything I search, I am having a tough
> time sifting through to determine what is current, and more importantly
> what is actually good advice.
>
> Any suggestions on a good starting point?

I'm not that up on those, myself, but I'd suggest checking out Jukka
Korpela's site as, from reading various newsgroup posts, I think he has a
pretty good handle on it. Sorry I don't have the link (-housecleaning my
box and own site), but someone's sure to post it.

--
Neredbojias

The 16th century French satirical writer François Rabelais in his series of
novels Gargantua and Pantagruel, discussing the various ways of cleansing
oneself at the toilet, wrote that: "He who uses paper on his filthy bum,
will always find his ballocks lined with scum"

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

In article ,
William Gill wrote:

> In yet another effort to update my practices, and clean out some mental
> artifacts, and other residue (much dating back to the early 90's) I need
> to reassess my html semantics.

> Any suggestions on a good starting point?

http://www.htmldog.com/

--
dorayme

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

Neredbojias wrote:

> I'm not that up on those, myself, but I'd suggest checking out Jukka
> Korpela's site as, from reading various newsgroup posts, I think he has a
> pretty good handle on it. Sorry I don't have the link (-housecleaning my
> box and own site), but someone's sure to post it.
>

Thanks, I've got it. His intro covers things like using H# tags for
headers, etc. Was getting the impression I needed a more in depth on
html semantics, but maybe not.

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

dorayme wrote:

>
> http://www.htmldog.com/
>

Thanks, I had already checked them out, but didn't see anything in depth
about semantics. I'm beginning to get the idea I just need to reread
the beginner's stuff, and take notes on where I may be off the mark. I
may not be as bad off I as I thought, but sense a real disdain here for
div and span abuse, and thought I'd better brush up. I guess back to
basics is back to basics.

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

In article ,
William Gill wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
>
> >
> > http://www.htmldog.com/
> >
>
> Thanks, I had already checked them out, but didn't see anything in depth
> about semantics. I'm beginning to get the idea I just need to reread
> the beginner's stuff, and take notes on where I may be off the mark. I
> may not be as bad off I as I thought, but sense a real disdain here for
> div and span abuse, and thought I'd better brush up. I guess back to
> basics is back to basics.

OK. What are some of the main things puzzling you? The meaning of
individual elements? How the meaning of some elements are more
specific than others? Which elements have some significant
meaning and which do not? How much effort to put into avoiding
basically meaningless containers like divs?

--
dorayme

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

dorayme wrote:

> OK. What are some of the main things puzzling you? The meaning of
> individual elements? How the meaning of some elements are more
> specific than others? Which elements have some significant
> meaning and which do not?

Bearing in mind I am trying to break bad habits as well as form new
ones, yes. For instance, 15 years ago I never considered my navigation
links as an unordered list, and it probably wasn't important since
several structural approaches rendered the same effect. Now with the
various non-visual UA's it impacts how a page is "rendered." So it is
important enough for me to readdress my navigation bars. On the other
hand, appropriate use of H# elements has never been an issue.

> How much effort to put into avoiding
> basically meaningless containers like divs?
>

I don't want to be a zealot about it, I think I can decide when a div, a
table, or even a span is OK, but I do think a more semantic approach in
general will prevent unnecessary div propagation.

I need to do a comprehensive analysis, but my problem is that when I
review new material for beginners, I have a tendency to read what is
already in my mind, and not what is being expressed. I'm sure we all do
that to some extent, but my particular disability exacerbates the
problem. I certainly don't want to get into any black and white holy
war that says things like "Though shalt not use tables (or divs, or
spans, etc)", on the other hand I don't want to use them to compensate
for poor markup. I use dl frequently for things that aren't strictly
definition lists, but I'm not sure I understand all of the ramifications.

I respect the opinions of the people like you in this forum. Even when
I disagree, I can usually improve my perspective. I have a feel for the
mindset of some of the people here, and as a result can temper my own
opinions. When I search for semantic html, I get lots of results, but
have no way of evaluating their relevance, accuracy, or anything else.
I'm even beginning to wonder if I'm sending myself on a snipe hunt.

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

In article ,
William Gill wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
>
> > OK. What are some of the main things puzzling you? The meaning of
> > individual elements? How the meaning of some elements are more
> > specific than others? Which elements have some significant
> > meaning and which do not?
>
> Bearing in mind I am trying to break bad habits as well as form new
> ones, yes. For instance, 15 years ago I never considered my navigation
> links as an unordered list, and it probably wasn't important since
> several structural approaches rendered the same effect. Now with the
> various non-visual UA's it impacts how a page is "rendered." So it is
> important enough for me to readdress my navigation bars. On the other
> hand, appropriate use of H# elements has never been an issue.
>
> > How much effort to put into avoiding
> > basically meaningless containers like divs?
> >
>
> I don't want to be a zealot about it, I think I can decide when a div, a
> table, or even a span is OK, but I do think a more semantic approach in
> general will prevent unnecessary div propagation.

I was trying to pin you down to some concrete problems you may be
having so that a discussion of them might be productive for you
and me and all. But I can see you are not in a mood to be
specific. You have *no* problem now with unordered lists. Fine!


--
dorayme

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

dorayme wrote:
> I was trying to pin you down to some concrete problems you may be
> having so that a discussion of them might be productive for you
> and me and all. But I can see you are not in a mood to be
> specific. You have *no* problem now with unordered lists. Fine!
>
>

Sorry, I was looking for a reliable starting point to review my
practices. It's something I have always done, review, reevaluate,
adjust. In past lives I had to make decisions that impacted many
people. I could make those decisions, knowing they were the "best"
decision based on the information available at the time. Einstein's
fourth dimension, time. The decisions I make today, don't make
yesterday's decisions wrong, just outdated. Obviously my web design
isn't so critical, but old habits are hard to break. Besides, I really
hate being wrong.

I have seen a lot of discussion on html semantics, and though the
semantics of a page advertising an event, are different than those of a
curriculum vitae, I thought I should investigate a more semantic
approach in general. Unfortunately it seems that like so many things,
anyone who can spell HTML, and has an opinion, has published it
(actually blogs even remove the HTML requirement). HTML semantics are
either the future of the web (of course that's what they said about
xhtml a few years back), or another fad.

Thanks for your time. Trust that if and when I uncover any "concrete
problems", that (hopefully) haven't been addressed here dozens of times,
I will ask more specific questions. As I said, I do already pick up new
ways of looking at things here.

You know, when I first started, I didn't find this forum very useful.
It seemed to be a predecessor to today's blogs, a good place to publish
opinions, but opinions are like a certain body part, everyone has one.
Now I find it invaluable. Do you think it's because the forum is that
much better, I am that much smarter, or a combination of both?

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

In article ,
William Gill wrote:

> You know, when I first started, I didn't find this forum very useful.
> It seemed to be a predecessor to today's blogs, a good place to publish
> opinions, but opinions are like a certain body part, everyone has one.
> Now I find it invaluable. Do you think it's because the forum is that
> much better, I am that much smarter, or a combination of both?

Because you are wise and mature and good.

--
dorayme

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

On Oct 24, 3:26 pm, William Gill wrote:

> I have seen a lot of discussion on html semantics, and though the
> semantics of a page advertising an event, are different than those of a
> curriculum vitae, I thought I should investigate a more semantic
> approach in general. Unfortunately it seems that like so many things,
> anyone who can spell HTML, and has an opinion, has published it
> (actually blogs even remove the HTML requirement). HTML semantics are
> either the future of the web (of course that's what they said about
> xhtml a few years back), or another fad.

Have a look at pages discussing POSH (Plain Old Semantic HTML)
starting with http://microformats.org/wiki/posh

Steve

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

dorayme wrote:

> Because you are wise and mature and good.
>

2 out of 3 ain't bad! (Please don't ask)

Re: retooling and mental housecleaning

Steve Pugh wrote:

> Have a look at pages discussing POSH (Plain Old Semantic HTML)
> starting with http://microformats.org/wiki/posh

Looks like a very good starting point. Thanks.