Deprecated elements - comments?

[The Doormouse]

Certain HTML 4.01 elements are deprecated - which means that they may not
be supported by HTML 4.02. Since there will never be an HTML 4.02, and
the resulting HTML may need to be machine-readable by XSLT transform, the
DIV tag with the deprecated CENTER tag might work better than the
equivalent CSS in rare cases. Also, simplicity and legibility are an
issue.

Although use of deprecated tags does hard code a presentational element,
there are some benefits, such as better legibility. My use is for pages
that will not be changed once written, but they may be repurposed.

What are other people's thoughts on <div align="center"> and "<img
align="left" (or right)>, in general and also with regards to
multipurposing a page written in HTML?

The Doormouse

 

[Neal]

Certain HTML 4.01 elements are deprecated - which means that they may not
be supported by HTML 4.02. Since there will never be an HTML 4.02, and
the resulting HTML may need to be machine-readable by XSLT transform, the
DIV tag with the deprecated CENTER tag might work better than the
equivalent CSS in rare cases. Also, simplicity and legibility are an
issue.

Although use of deprecated tags does hard code a presentational element,
there are some benefits, such as better legibility. My use is for pages
that will not be changed once written, but they may be repurposed.

What are other people's thoughts on <div align="center"> and "<img
align="left" (or right)>, in general and also with regards to
multipurposing a page written in HTML?

I think markup is generally deprecated because there either are alternate
ways to achieve the same effect (as in the align attribute) or it's
inadvisable to use it altogether (<u>). That said, the only currently used
browsers which cannot handle CSS1 are slowly fading away, and I assume the
same will be true of CSS2 support in 5 years.

I don't see it as likely that future UAs won't continue to interpret HTML
+ CSS properly - in fact, it's likely they'll do the job more properly
than at present. In fact, currently deprecated markup may be more likely
to be no longer available, though I still doubt this as well.

I'd need to be convinced that it's likely that the future interpretation
of HTML + CSS will pose an issue before thinking there might be any
benefit in bringing the align attribute back out of the basement.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Certain HTML 4.01 elements are deprecated - which means that they may
not be supported by HTML 4.02.

What the W3C says abot deprecation is that authors should not use
deprecated elements (but browsers are currently still required to support
them). The rest is speculation, or at most deduction based on
circumstantial evidence.

Since there will never be an HTML 4.02,

It depends. One might well say that HTML 4.02 already exists; they just
call it XHTML 1.0. And even HTML 4.03 exists, it's called XHTML 1.1.
(Just remember that bigger does not always mean better, even in version
numbers.)

and the resulting HTML may need to be machine-readable by XSLT
transform,

Pardon? You lost me there. How would that be relevant to deprecation?
XHTML 1.0 is XML, yet contains all the deprecated stuff.

the DIV tag with the deprecated CENTER tag might work
better than the equivalent CSS in rare cases.

Yes, but the meaning of such situations is already small and gets
smaller.

Also, simplicity and legibility are an issue.

And a moot. HTML source is simpler and more legible when it contains no
presentational features. Surely
<h1>Hello world</h1>
is simpler and more legible than
<div align="center"><h1>Hello world</h1></div>
or even

What are other people's thoughts on <div align="center"> and "<img
align="left" (or right)>, in general and also with regards to
multipurposing a page written in HTML?

They are mostly harmless; not a big issue really. But when you e.g. wish
to put an image on the left or right of some text, you will notice that
you normally want to put some spacing between the image and the text.
It's difficult to do such things in HTML - e.g., <img ... hspace="8">
puts 8 pixels on _both_ sides of the image, and what the situation really
calls for is some spacing on one side, and maybe best in em units (so
that it's automatically scaled when the font size changes). This means
that it's easily done in CSS, and then you might as well put float: left
or float: right there, instead of using the align="..." attribute.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Certain HTML 4.01 elements are deprecated - which means that they may not
be supported by HTML 4.02. Since there will never be an HTML 4.02, and
the resulting HTML may need to be machine-readable by XSLT transform, the
DIV tag with the deprecated CENTER tag might work better than the
equivalent CSS in rare cases. Also, simplicity and legibility are an
issue.

Although use of deprecated tags does hard code a presentational element,
there are some benefits, such as better legibility. My use is for pages
that will not be changed once written, but they may be repurposed.

What are other people's thoughts on <div align="center"> and "<img
align="left" (or right)>, in general and also with regards to
multipurposing a page written in HTML?

The Doormouse

HTML is already depreciated. XHTML 1.0 is the current standard you
should really be writing to as it lends itself to the more structured
approach of XML.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

HTML is already depreciated. XHTML 1.0 is the current standard you
should really be writing to as it lends itself to the more structured
approach of XML.

Wow, where DO you kids pick up this nonsense? Reminds me of my little
son, hollering obscenities he clearly doesn't understand himself.


Matthias

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Although use of deprecated tags does hard code a presentational element,
there are some benefits, such as better legibility. My use is for pages
that will not be changed once written, but they may be repurposed.

What are other people's thoughts on <div align="center"> and "<img
align="left" (or right)>, in general and also with regards to
multipurposing a page written in HTML?

I'd leave out all presentational attributes, that makes it far easier to
adjust the content presentation with a stylesheet that suits the
"repurposed" purpose.

A couple well-placed ID or CLASS attributes might be useful, but
generally I think people are overdoing this, probably because they don't
know how to work with type/descendant/child selectors.


Matthias

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

SpaceGirl wrote: - -

Wow, where DO you kids pick up this nonsense?

Learning by osmosis, one might say (especially Arjun).

Actually they originally get it from W3C, half-digested, half-
misunderstood, and copied in mutated forms.

I guess it's time to help them move to new levels. XHTML 1.0 is really
_old_ stuff - effectively last century stuff, though it was formally
announced in early 2000. Still _years_ old. It has been decrepated by
XHTML 1.1, then XHTML 2.0 and Modularized XHTML, etc.

The _current_ standard is of course XHTML 3.0 now, see
http://w2c.shorturl.com

 

[Neal]

HTML is already depreciated. XHTML 1.0 is the current standard you
should really be writing to as it lends itself to the more structured
approach of XML.

As Yakof Smirnoff says, in Soviet Russia HTML deprecates you.

I should just go on record saying the above is nonsense. You cannot serve
XML to the most prevalent UA. Since you can impose XML's well-formed
structure as easily on HTML, I fail to see the advantage of XHTML, and in
fact see disadvantage.

 

[Kris]

HTML is already depreciated. XHTML 1.0 is the current standard you
should really be writing to as it lends itself to the more structured
approach of XML.

As Yakof Smirnoff says, in Soviet Russia HTML deprecates you.

I should just go on record saying the above is nonsense. You cannot serve
XML to the most prevalent UA. Since you can impose XML's well-formed
structure as easily on HTML, I fail to see the advantage of XHTML, and in
fact see disadvantage.[/QUOTE]

I suppose it is the common misunderstanding demonstrated here, that XML
would cause strictness, while in reality the Strict variant of HTML (or
XHTML - that is irrelevant) imposes that strictness. Am I correct?

 

[Neal]

As Yakof Smirnoff says, in Soviet Russia HTML deprecates you.

I should just go on record saying the above is nonsense. You cannot
serve
XML to the most prevalent UA. Since you can impose XML's well-formed
structure as easily on HTML, I fail to see the advantage of XHTML, and
in
fact see disadvantage.

I suppose it is the common misunderstanding demonstrated here, that XML
would cause strictness, while in reality the Strict variant of HTML (or
XHTML - that is irrelevant) imposes that strictness. Am I correct?
[/QUOTE]


Partially, I think. One feature of XML is that all elements must be
closed. This is why you cannot omit </p> in XHTML while it is valid in
HTML, and why <img> becomes <img /> in XHTML.

When you create XHTML and serve it as text/html to IE (otherwise, IE
cannot do the job because it's lame) the formatting is still XHTML. The
normally-not-required-to-be-closed elements are fine, the empty tags with
the extra space-/ in the body are fine. You can run into trouble with
space-/-> in the head, though, as according to SGML it's content and
cantent cannot appear in the head. So you're serving a document as
text/html which isn't valid. The only way you can fix that involves
defeating the benefits of caching, so isn't desirable from a WWW
standpoint.

No, the best solution is to stick to HTML because IE is a spoilsport for
not handling the W3C standards they were a part of creating. But we can
employ the proper closing of tags in HTML just fine. When a document might
later be changed to XHTML, all we need do is rewrite the empty elements
with the slash and a few small steps more to make it XHTML.

My point is that preparation for a possible XHTML future should include
adopting the practices you'll need to use in XHTML while still using HTML
(so long as the practice does not break the HTML). It need not include
writing to a standard that cannot be reasonably served to a preponderance
of users.

With the usual caveat that if you are using XML tools in creating the
page, an XHTML doctype, even if served as text/html, can be worth it.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Wow, where DO you kids pick up this nonsense? Reminds me of my little
son, hollering obscenities he clearly doesn't understand himself.


Matthias

Excuse me?

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

 

[Steve Pugh]

Excuse me?

Well...

Did you mean to type depreciated or deprecated? HTML is not deprecated
and if it's depreciated then that's just a presonal opinion.

Why is XHTML 1.0 the current standard rather than XHTML 1.1 or HTML
4.01? In fact the only thing that's a standard at all is ISO-HTML
which is closer to HTML 4.01 than XHTML 1.0.

And what does the "more structured approach of XML" mean in real
terms?
Closing all tags? Helps with CSS support in some buggy old browsers
but otherwise just adds to bandwidth.
All lowercase? Just syntax, doesn't have any benefits at all.
Quote all attributes? Just syntax, doesn't have any benefits at all
and increases bandwidth.
Nest elements properly? Whoops that's in HTML as well.

XML can contain any element invented by anyone - it doens't even need
a DTD thanks to some really bogus logic. HTML is limited to a set of
predefined elements. Hmm, which sounds more structured to you? A
particular application of XML may be more structured than HTML, but
XHTML isn't that application.

For a very small number of sites the use of XML tools on the server
make XHTML a better choice (but not much better as XML -> HTML is
almost as easy as XML -> XHTML). The rest is just hype.

Steve

 

[Els]

Did you mean to type presonal or personal? A personal
opinion may be fine but I think you'll find that a presonal
opinion is deprecated.

<g>

 

[Steve Pugh]

Did you mean to type presonal or personal? A personal opinion may be fine
but I think you'll find that a presonal opinion is deprecated.

Touche.

Steve

 

[Robert Frost-Bridges]

Did you mean to type depreciated or deprecated? HTML is not deprecated
and if it's depreciated then that's just a presonal opinion.

Did you mean to type presonal or personal? A personal opinion may be fine
but I think you'll find that a presonal opinion is deprecated.

 

[Mark Parnell]

probably because they don't
know how to work with type/descendant/child selectors.

And because IE's support of same quite frankly sucks.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven Steve Pugh:

Touche.

I love it when someone posts about a speeling or grammer error and
maeks one of there own. <g>

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

And because IE's support of same quite frankly sucks.

That, too. But to hell with bad browsers!


Matthias

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Excuse me?

You are excused. Don't forget to wash your hands afterwards.


Matthias

 

[Andy Dingley]

I should just go on record saying the above is nonsense. You cannot serve
XML to the most prevalent UA.

Of course you can - you just have to avoid telling it you're doing so.
What it doesn't know won't hurt it.

And to be pedantic, there's much less problem in serving XML to it
than there is in serving XHTML with some recognisable doctype on it.
It's the quirk-o-matic that causes trouble, not the XML syntax (except
for a few well-known issues, like <script /> killing the page).