how picky should you be with certain inline elements?

[John Salerno]

Just a little poll, I guess. I'm curious what the best practice is for
labeling items with <abbr>, <acronym>, <code>, etc. when they appear
frequently in the text of your HTML. Should you label every occurrence,
even if it's just an isolated word here and there, and even if it's a
repeat of something that's already been labeled?

Thanks.

 

[carolyn]

Just a little poll, I guess. I'm curious what the best practice is for
labeling items with <abbr>, <acronym>, <code>, etc. when they appear
frequently in the text of your HTML. Should you label every occurrence,
even if it's just an isolated word here and there, and even if it's a
repeat of something that's already been labeled?

Thanks.

My vote is to label everything for what it is. Then browsers have a better
chance of displaying it properly, and that is meant to include auditory
browsers readying it correctly.

Carolyn

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit John Salerno:

Just a little poll, I guess.

Why? Are you interested in opinions (that's what you get in polls, at best),
or facts and arguments?

I'm curious what the best practice is for
labeling items with <abbr>, <acronym>, <code>, etc. when they appear
frequently in the text of your HTML.

<abbr> and <acronym> are useless. I won't bother referring the arguments,
since there are no factual arguments _in favor of_ using them - no tangible
benefits that would overweigh the risks.

Should you label every
occurrence, even if it's just an isolated word here and there, and
even if it's a repeat of something that's already been labeled?

Huh? The only remaining item in your list is <code>, and of course you need
to repeat it for anything that needs to be marked up as computer code. Just
having <code>foo</code> somewhere doesn't mean that any subsequent foo is
code, too.

 

[John Salerno]

Scripsit John Salerno:


Why? Are you interested in opinions (that's what you get in polls, at best),
or facts and arguments?

Eh, I thought that line might get me in trouble. I'm looking for best
practice.

<abbr> and <acronym> are useless. I won't bother referring the arguments,
since there are no factual arguments _in favor of_ using them - no tangible
benefits that would overweigh the risks.

So you wouldn't use these for anything, such as "HTML", "CSS", "GUI" etc.?

Huh? The only remaining item in your list is <code>, and of course you need
to repeat it for anything that needs to be marked up as computer code. Just
having <code>foo</code> somewhere doesn't mean that any subsequent foo is
code, too.

Well, I was being general about it, but fine. I'm referring to all
"phrase" elements as well, such as <samp>, <var>, <cite>, <em>,
<strong>, <dfn>, <kbd>.

I can understand using them in larger blocks of text (such as big block
of code), but what if I have a paragraph that uses single words of code
frequently. Do you mark each of those words?

 

[Joe (GKF)]

Just a little poll, I guess. I'm curious what the best practice is for
labeling items with <abbr>, <acronym>, <code>, etc. when they appear
frequently in the text of your HTML. Should you label every occurrence,
even if it's just an isolated word here and there, and even if it's a
repeat of something that's already been labeled?

Thanks.

<code> always
<abbr> and <acronym> on first occurrence. I use a title=?? whenever I
use either of these.