keep it simple

[PMB9]

There are too many elements in the specification. Please keep it simple.

[SneakyWho_am_i]

Which elements would you deprecate? (I know, deprecate is a bad word now but it is what is!)

I would like to see:
- authors can not include presentational markup at all, ever. No font tags. No b. No i.

These elements maybe should be understood by user agents but not valid to include in new documents.

I know that this would make the learning curve huge for new developers.
The argument that just because they're all there, doesn't mean you have to actually use them is a good one.

HOW ABOUT THIS:
(I do not advise inclusion of any feature of this nature because it's so easily done in userspace)
Create a mechanism for authors to specify which tags they will deprecate in their own documents. This probably can NOT happen on account of we already have namespaces for things like this. But this is my answer to "create your own element" -- instead, I propose "deprecate your own element"
PHP has this feature:
http://wiki.php.net/rfc/e-user-deprecated-warning

So it would be nice if there were a switch somewhere I could flick to cause a massive, fatal parser error if an author included a font tag.
At the moment I can use css like this:

Code: Select all

font { font-size: 2em !important; color: red !important; wrongness: absolute !important; }

to "remind" friends to not use it. I can also use javascript like this:

Code: Select all

if (document.getElementsByTagName('font')[0]) {
alert('You are so 1997, I bet you even say "Nutscape"');
}

Ok so there we go. I guess I can deprecate elements on my own using evil evil CSS and javascript hacks, and therefore the number of elements in the specification can probably not really be too great, in my humble opinion. I can just ignore or ban the ones I don't want.





I do not feel that the specification is too complex, although I'm looking for more evidence of semantic concern and sometimes (less and less) bang into things that smell inherently presentational. Just adding my two cents here.