«

Message-ID: <> from
contained the following:

>>Middle C is between B and C#
>>
>>
>
>So much for my primary school music education then.
>
>Wouldn't it more accurately be described as being between Cb and C#,
>tho? I've probably just reinforced my display of ignorance.

I couldn't possibly comment...
There is only a semitone between B and C and so there is no Cb.

>Oh well:
>that's all a matter of presentation, not information anyway.

I suppose so. You can play in B# if you want to. I'll play in C.
--
Geoff Berrow 0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011
http://slipperyhill.co.uk - http://4theweb.co.uk

Message-ID: <> from
contained the following:

>>The point is that HTML offers mechanisms for the informative structuring
>>and labelling of content, and if we are going to use it to its best
>>effect, then we should exploit those mechanisms to the fullest extent
>>possible, and not allow questions of "how it looks" to affect how we use
>>it.
>
>I wouldn't disagree with the fundamental thrust of that - especially
>as my knowledge of HTML is less developed than my understanding of how
>animals hear with their feet - except to say that how things look
>DOES need to be taken into account in how we use things. Not a lot
>of point having a red button for "boom!" and a green button for "no
>boom!" if the operator of the buttons is colour blind.

I think you are getting confused. Content marked up in HTML is has
nothing to do with how it looks. The /look/ of HTML marked up content
is entirely due to the default styles imposed upon that markup by the
browser. Without those, the HTML would make no difference to the look
of the content whatsoever, it would still just be plain text.

In theory, content should be marked up semantically, in other words
headings should have heading tags, paragraphs have paragraph tags and
lists are marked up as lists. And yes, tabular data should be marked up
as tables.

If this is done correctly the /look/ of a document is then infinitely
variable using style sheets.

--
Geoff Berrow 0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011
http://slipperyhill.co.uk - http://4theweb.co.uk

In article
<1iwveaq.p1x6occfacmlN%real-not-anti-spam->,
real-not-anti-spam- (D.M. Procida) wrote:

"The mere fact that one can have different presentation of the same
information means that they must be distinguishable. If they weren't,
then affecting the mode of presentation would affect the semantic
content."

But note that it does not follow that the information has no inherent
presentational attributes, it may be that there is a set of core
intrinsic presentations the members of which are the simplest
appearances that human would recognise as the essential information.
That is at least as good as the unexplained object - 'the information' -
you refer to.

Just because a number of presentations are said to share things in
common, that does not explain the nature of what it is they share. It
may very well be some set of appearances. If anyone does not like the
set I proposed, how about the set consisting of all present and all
future *default* styles? At least this last is not something anyone can
fail to understand.

--
dorayme

"Jonathan N. Little" <> wrote:

>David Segall wrote:
>> Bergamot <> wrote:
>>
>>> D.M. Procida wrote:
>>>> dorayme <> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Are you saying that better than
>>>>>
>>>>> <http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/markup3.html>
>>>>>
>>>>> would be to make markup 1 look something similar?
>>>> If that's really a list of events, then yes. But not if it's supposed to
>>>> be tabular data.
>>> That is just a list of events. Table markup is illogical because there
>>> is no relationship between the cells in a row, other than the headers.
>>> If it were tabular there would be some kind of relationship between data
>>> cells.
>>
>> dorayme in her continued crusade to persuade us that black is grey and
>> white is grey has come up with an arguable example of what you might
>> define as nested lists that can also be defined as a table. There is
>> an implied row heading column that could contain the entries "1st
>> event", "2nd event", etc. To make it more realistic substitute
>> Morning, Afternoon and Evening for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
>
>Yep, next she might advocate not need for paragraphs in P elements, one
>"should" use a one column table for that as well!

No. She has consistently argued against any form of "should". The
fundamentalists in this group, and I am one of them, believe that
every element of a document can, and "should", be defined according to
the SGML specification. As I understand it, dorayme believes that any
*practical* interpretation of the Bible is valid.

I defended her in my response above because I thought she provided a
valid Jesuitical justification for her menu. On the basis of her
underlying beliefs I think she ought to be excommunicated from this
group precisely because she does not appear to accept "should".

On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:57:25 +0000, Geoff Berrow
<> wrote:

>Message-ID: <> from
> contained the following:
>

>I think you are getting confused.
That is entirely possible. I shall have to check back and see if I
am.

In article <>,
David Segall <> wrote:

>
> [dorayme] has consistently argued against any form of "should". The
> fundamentalists in this group, and I am one of them, believe that
> every element of a document can, and "should", be defined according to
> the SGML specification. As I understand it, dorayme believes that any
> *practical* interpretation of the Bible is valid.
>

The HTML specifications are a valuable source of information for the
practical web site maker, and he *should* mark up as semantically as is
possible and that by no means is anything temporarily and narrowly
convenient, a good thing.

One must take a large view of things and in this large view there are a
few uncomfortable surprises to those looking down long noses at
presentation. Presentation is 'of the people' and I defend the people,
the common man. I have not come to earth to sport such things as the
nudge, nudge, wink, wink, spooky abstract HTML content theory. I rub
shoulders with the battlers trying to earn a quid.

I reject various dogmas such as some narrow interpretation of tables
that have them, as it were, turn away various needy lists that come for
shelter. The tables I train in my W3d schools judge cases on their
merit. They generally reject requests to be used for mere page layout,
they are mindful of their headings and actual or implied summaries. They
are more than happy, though, to house lists if the lists cannot find a
comfortable and natural home in specific list elements. They eagerly let
lists that need to be compared with each other in.

Jeers from protesters outside who demand that all their cells must be
related to other cells in some narrow way do not sway them - guards are
posted to keep out the more violent protesters who do more than raise
their voices.

--
dorayme

In article <>,
Bergamot <> wrote:
>
> ...is just a list of events. Table markup is illogical ...

Let's step back from the particulars of the OP's case and look at this
business of some information being *just* this or that.

We want to let people know, in some context of a website page, which are
earth's planets and their relative sizes in terms as simple as "is
bigger than". This last is a general description of the information I
want to impart. The more complete one that contains all the information
could come from any of a number of quite different sentences, bits of
sentences, a speech haltingly made, not particularly grammatical, in no
particular order.

Here is the information in a more ordered way, smallest to biggest:
Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter.

How is this "information" to be marked up? Here are the four likeliest
candidates.

1. A UL under a heading that says: "Our Sun's planets from small to big,
starting with small"

2. An OL with or without bullet numbers, with a heading like in 1 above
or a different heading or lead paragraph to set context and simply the
inclusion of the sun as last item - everyone knows the sun is way more
massive than all and that alone provides the clue to the order.

3. A table element with a heading and/or a summary.

4. A paragraph element with text that reads "Our sun's planets, smallest
to biggest: Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter"

The information has no *one inner structure*, at least not one that is
best reflected by any particular markup. There is no identifiable
contextless inner structure to the information. There are a number of
ways a website maker can receive this information and there are a few
HTML ways that would suit the information.

Pretty well the same remarks go if the case is one giving info of
planets and actual sizes. It might seem that the real inner structure
is tabular and needs a table. This is a mistake. It has no inner
structure. A simple UL would capture the info, each list item reading
like

Mercury - 2439 km radius

An OL too would be fine, this would perhaps say more than merely show
the relative sizes (but there is a big question mark about this)

A table would be fine enough too, either as a single column or better, a
two col job.

Picking over raw information to display the microfinest details in it
might be ok, it might not be ok. It is a matter of context and
convenience to all overall. You cannot judge these things in advance.
There is no given structured information. It is we who give info
structure in a context.

--
dorayme

dorayme <> wrote:

>
>Let's step back from the particulars of the OP's case and look at this
>business of some information being *just* this or that.

[snip]

>Picking over raw information to display the microfinest details in it
>might be ok, it might not be ok. It is a matter of context and
>convenience to all overall. You cannot judge these things in advance.
>There is no given structured information. It is we who give info
>structure in a context.

When you post in alt.html you are in the HTML/CSS department. Your
only task is to decide if the people in the authoring and editing
department _intended_ to present the information as, say, a table or a
list of lists. In addition, you should ensure that your CSS conforms
to the presentation that was decided in the art and layout department.

When you post in web.authoring you are a document author and you can
choose to present the information as a table, a list or a diagram. The
HTML/CSS department should mark it up according to your semantics.
They are not entitled to tell the author how the information should be
presented. They must not join a couple of paragraphs or remove some
italics from the text because they think it improves the presentation.

You are allowed to move between the authoring department, the art
department and the technicians in the mark up department but you cause
great confusion among your readers when you try to be in all of them
at once.

In article <>,
David Segall <> wrote:

> dorayme <> wrote:
>
> >
> >Let's step back from the particulars of the OP's case and look at this
> >business of some information being *just* this or that.
>
> [snip]
>
> >Picking over raw information to display the microfinest details in it
> >might be ok, it might not be ok. It is a matter of context and
> >convenience to all overall. You cannot judge these things in advance.
> >There is no given structured information. It is we who give info
> >structure in a context.
>
> When you post in alt.html you are in the HTML/CSS department. Your
> only task is to decide if the people in the authoring and editing
> department _intended_ to present the information as, say, a table or a
> list of lists. In addition, you should ensure that your CSS conforms
> to the presentation that was decided in the art and layout department.
>
> When you post in web.authoring you are a document author and you can
> choose to present the information as a table, a list or a diagram. The
> HTML/CSS department should mark it up according to your semantics.
> They are not entitled to tell the author how the information should be
> presented. They must not join a couple of paragraphs or remove some
> italics from the text because they think it improves the presentation.
>
> You are allowed to move between the authoring department, the art
> department and the technicians in the mark up department but you cause
> great confusion among your readers when you try to be in all of them
> at once.

There is a suggestion that I condone a view of matters HTML/CSS that
could cause great confusion to readers. If so, I would like to remove it
even at the cost of altering my expressed views. My views are nothing to
me, I would gladly ditch them for any better ones at any time.

You know by now that I am a fan of semantic mark up and am a fan also of
making sure that if author styles are off, there is no confusion.

So somewhere up there /\ in your paragraphs, is some warning about the
danger of my view. Not sure quite what it is, it sounds interesting and
suggestive.

--
dorayme