Odd paragraph in Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia's article on HTML
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML),

Second, semantic HTML frees authors from the need to concern
themselves with presentation details. When writing the number two,
for example, should it be written out in words ("two"), or should it
be written as a numeral (2)? A semantic markup might enter something
like 2 and leave presentation details to the
stylesheet designers. Similarly, an author might wonder where to
break out quotations into separate indented blocks of text: with
purely semantic HTML, such details would be left up to stylesheet
designers. Authors would simply indicate quotations when they occur
in the text, and not concern themselves with presentation.

Are either of these actually possible with CSS 2.1?

--
David
Stardate 8336.3

David Trimboli writes:

> According to Wikipedia's article on HTML
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML),
>
> Second, semantic HTML frees authors from the need to concern
> themselves with presentation details. When writing the number two,
> for example, should it be written out in words ("two"), or should it
> be written as a numeral (2)? A semantic markup might enter something
> like 2 and leave presentation details to the
> stylesheet designers. Similarly, an author might wonder where to
> break out quotations into separate indented blocks of text: with
> purely semantic HTML, such details would be left up to stylesheet
> designers. Authors would simply indicate quotations when they occur
> in the text, and not concern themselves with presentation.
>
> Are either of these actually possible with CSS 2.1?

There isn't a number element in HTML 4 (and that part of the paragraph
doesn't really make much sense to me anyway). You /can/ do all kinds
of funky stuff styling blockquote / q though; and they're the obvious
choices for quotations.

Overall, the paragraph seems OK, although HTML could definitely use more
semantic tags and CSS is just not as well-supported as it should be.

--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/

David Trimboli wrote:
> According to Wikipedia's article on HTML
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML),
>
> Second, semantic HTML frees authors from the need to concern
> themselves with presentation details. When writing the number two,
> for example, should it be written out in words ("two"), or should it
> be written as a numeral (2)? A semantic markup might enter something
> like 2 and leave presentation details to the
> stylesheet designers. Similarly, an author might wonder where to
> break out quotations into separate indented blocks of text: with
> purely semantic HTML, such details would be left up to stylesheet
> designers. Authors would simply indicate quotations when they occur
> in the text, and not concern themselves with presentation.
>
> Are either of these actually possible with CSS 2.1?
>

The first part is not possible with CSS 2.1, or any draft of CSS 3, for
that matter. Such design, I believe, is an overzealous attempt to
separate content from presentation, since using numerals for numbers
less than 10 in non-technical manners is universally considered poor
grammar, which is a function of content and not presentation. Imagine
having to do this:
I to think ...
just so you could style the verb as being in the present or in the past,
etc.

Anyways, the latter could be handled in CSS, if done right:

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. is a famous quote attributed to Donald Knuth.

Inline style:

q {
display: inline;
quote-start: "\"";
quote-end: "\"";
}

Block style:
q {
display: block;
margin-left: 5em;
margin-right: 5em;
}

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

Joshua Cranmer wrote:
> David Trimboli wrote:
>> According to Wikipedia's article on HTML
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML),
>>
>> Second, semantic HTML frees authors from the need to concern
>> themselves with presentation details. When writing the number two,
>> for example, should it be written out in words ("two"), or should it
>> be written as a numeral (2)? A semantic markup might enter something
>> like 2 and leave presentation details to the
>> stylesheet designers. Similarly, an author might wonder where to
>> break out quotations into separate indented blocks of text: with
>> purely semantic HTML, such details would be left up to stylesheet
>> designers. Authors would simply indicate quotations when they occur
>> in the text, and not concern themselves with presentation.
>>
>> Are either of these actually possible with CSS 2.1?
>
> The first part is not possible with CSS 2.1, or any draft of CSS 3, for
> that matter. Such design, I believe, is an overzealous attempt to
> separate content from presentation, since using numerals for numbers
> less than 10 in non-technical manners is universally considered poor
> grammar, which is a function of content and not presentation. Imagine
> having to do this:
> I to think ...
> just so you could style the verb as being in the present or in the past,
> etc.

Indeed, I wouldn't want to actually write such code; I was only
interested in whether styling numbers like that were possible somehow.

> Anyways, the latter could be handled in CSS, if done right:
>
> Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
> tried it. is a famous quote attributed to Donald Knuth.
>
> Inline style:
>
> q {
> display: inline;
> quote-start: "\"";
> quote-end: "\"";
> }
>
> Block style:
> q {
> display: block;
> margin-left: 5em;
> margin-right: 5em;
> }

It looked to me like the passage was saying that a stylesheet designer
could somehow determine whether a quotation should be kept inline or be
made a separate paragraph; this usually depends on the length of the
quotation. What you're doing here makes all quotations either inline or
in a block, regardless of their lengths.

--
David
Stardate 8336.5

David Trimboli wrote:

> It looked to me like the passage was saying that a stylesheet designer
> could somehow determine whether a quotation should be kept inline or be
> made a separate paragraph; this usually depends on the length of the
> quotation. What you're doing here makes all quotations either inline or
> in a block, regardless of their lengths.
>

Well the Q element is inline by default so you don't need to do
anything, but to make it block:

q { display: block; }

if your want to only make block very large quotes then make a class for
larger bits of quotation

q.aLottaStuff { display: block; margin: 1em 5em; }

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> David Trimboli wrote:
>
>> It looked to me like the passage was saying that a stylesheet designer
>> could somehow determine whether a quotation should be kept inline or be
>> made a separate paragraph; this usually depends on the length of the
>> quotation. What you're doing here makes all quotations either inline or
>> in a block, regardless of their lengths.
>>
>
> Well the Q element is inline by default so you don't need to do
> anything, but to make it block:
>
> q { display: block; }
>
> if your want to only make block very large quotes then make a class for
> larger bits of quotation
>
> q.aLottaStuff { display: block; margin: 1em 5em; }

But then the document writer needs to know which to use in his document.
The point of the passage is that the document writer doesn't need to
know; only the stylesheet writer does.

--
David
Stardate 8336.7

David Trimboli wrote:
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>> David Trimboli wrote:
>>
>>> It looked to me like the passage was saying that a stylesheet
>>> designer could somehow determine whether a quotation should be kept
>>> inline or be made a separate paragraph; this usually depends on the
>>> length of the quotation. What you're doing here makes all quotations
>>> either inline or in a block, regardless of their lengths.
>>>
>>
>> Well the Q element is inline by default so you don't need to do
>> anything, but to make it block:
>>
>> q { display: block; }
>>
>> if your want to only make block very large quotes then make a class
>> for larger bits of quotation
>>
>> q.aLottaStuff { display: block; margin: 1em 5em; }
>
> But then the document writer needs to know which to use in his document.
> The point of the passage is that the document writer doesn't need to
> know; only the stylesheet writer does.
>

adding the class would just give the option that your may want to treat
the larger quoted material differently. The class "aLottaStuff" just
denotes the quote will be large, bit not how it should by presented.
That is why class names like "bigRed" are bad, you may want the text
italic and green. "description" or "catalogSummary" are better. Back to
class "aLottaStuff" if you decide not to make the large quotation as
indented block just change the stylesheet:

q.aLottaStuff {display: inline; quote-start: "\""; quote-end: "\""; }

and do not touch the markup.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Scripsit David Trimboli:

> Indeed, I wouldn't want to actually write such code; I was only
> interested in whether styling numbers like that were possible somehow.

Why don't you ask the wikipedia author or check his or her other texts
or references? Maybe an example of his or hers would illustrate the
message.

> It looked to me like the passage was saying that a stylesheet designer
> could somehow determine whether a quotation should be kept inline or
> be made a separate paragraph;

Why don't you ask the wikipedia author or check his or her other texts
or references? There must be some idea in his or her mind about the way
to do that.

> this usually depends on the length of the quotation.

Not really. Inline vs. block quotation is partly a matter of style,
partly a matter of structure. It's a decision to be made by the author
(of the quoting document), and it affects the overall design of the
context. The way in which a quotation is introduced and the way to give
credits and citations depend on that.

Returning to the wikipedia "article" that has caused confusion, I hope
you got the ironic points. There's no reason to get excited by something
mystic-looking in wikipedia, or on a toilet wall. Most probably, it's
just crap.

You might consider deleting it, to save others from getting confused.
But some fools might put it back.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Joost Diepenmaat writes:

> […] although HTML could definitely use more semantic tags

Please name a few semantics of any tags (or any other markup .


--