[wp-testers] Code Kvetching

[Stephen Rider]

On May 6, 2008, at 10:09 AM, zamoose at gmail.com wrote:

> On 5/6/08, Aaron D. Campbell <aaron at xavisys.com> wrote:
>> Doug Stewart wrote:
>>> You mean between PREs.  CODE is shorthand for monospace font, pre
>>> respects existing spacing and markup.
>>>
>> I think CODE means exactly what it says.  "This is code."  If the
>> user/browser wants to make that monospace, fine.  However, since it
>> contains code, WordPress should treat it like it contains code.
>
> Except that's not what the W3 standard says.  CODE elements say
> nothing about formatting and the respecting thereof, they're simply
> "phrase" elements.  It's semantic to label code with CODE

I think the argument here is that it _should_.  If something is  
semantically code, then it should be treated as code, and not  
typographically altered.  There are virtually no circumstances where  
it makes sense to alter the characters in computer code.

The W3 standard is silent on the issue because the W3 standard  
reflects how browsers should treat the markup that is sent.  This is a  
question of how the WordPress software is altering that code before it  
is sent to browsers.  WordPress should not alter something that is  
_semantically_ code.

Aaron is exactly right.  <code> simply means "this is code", and  
nothing else.  I think it is a very poor choice to have WordPress **by  
default** altering code at all, because code is by its nature very  
specific.

Stephen

-- 
Stephen Rider
<http://striderweb.com/>