[docbook-apps] Re: DocBook XSL 1.67.0 released

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu> was heard to say:
[...]
| Longer term, I'd also think about whether a few of these like
| systemitem, filename, and email need to be indicated with <span
| style="font-style: monospace"> instead of using code or samp at all.
| HTML is not as expressive as DocBook so clearly we're going to lose
| some semantics when transforming to HTML. However, we really shouldn't
| change the semantics, or add inaccurate semantics if we can help it.

Indeed. I'd be happy with <span class="filename">, but inline style
doesn't appeal to me at all.

| For the same reason we probably shouldn't be using strong or em for
| any of these, except maybe replaceable. I can believe replaceable is
| emphasized. However there's no fundamental reason that a command is
| strongly emphasized. What's being done here is using the strong and em
| elements as font style elements. If you don't want to use CSS it would
| be preferable to use the genuine font style elements b and i,
| deprecated though they are, to misusing strong and em.

Historically, I was inclined to use presentation markup in HTML and
CSS wasn't widely (enough) deployed to rely on it.

In the current era, folks seem to want to preserve the semantic markup
in the HTML, which is a perfectly understandable, and we seem to be
comfortable relying on CSS, so things are quite different.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Thanks to words, we have been able
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | to rise above the brutes; and
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | thanks to words, we have often
                                   | sunk to the level of the
                                   | demons.--Aldous Huxley

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