[Wikipedia-l] Re: <span>

[Brion Vibber]

On Apr 27, 2004, at 07:56, David Friedland wrote:
> I wish you the best of luck in your campaign. I've asked for <span> 
> tags  TWICE before and got shot down twice with the explanation that 
> <span> tags make the wikitext harder to read (as though <div> tags 
> were somehow better)

<div> tags are *also* bad, as are <font> tags. They're already there, 
though, and asking for something to be *added* and asking for something 
to be *removed* are different types of requests.

The idea that a <span> with an inline style is "better" than <font> 
however is ludicrous; they are of precisely identical complexity (they 
must specify the same information, though using a different syntax) and 
equally lack semantic value. <span>'s only theoretical value is in 
creating semantically meaningful pseudo-tags via class specifications, 
something which is only useful if you also control the global style 
sheet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)