Re: [Docutils-develop] Name for new attribute

[David G. <go...@py...>]

[Stefan Merten]
 > PS: If you find some pieces of cynicism in this mail you may not be
 > totally wrong.

I found it extremely snotty.  No need for that here.

[Stefan Merten]
 >>> Since David seems to be decided to introduce the unholy attribute
 >>> named ``class`` in HTML - could it get at least a correct name in
 >>> reST?

[Aahz]
 >> Why do you call it unholy?
 >
 > Because you can do something like this:
 >
 >   <p class="h1">This is the header - disguised as a <b
 >   class="i">paragraph (rendered in italics)</b></p>
 >
 >   <p class="l1">A list disguised as a paragraph</p>
 >   <table class="p">A paragraph disguised as a table</table>
 >
 > I think you get the idea.

That's simply abuse.  You cannot prevent abuse with a name change.
When the abuser realizes that the "variant" or "format" (or whatever)
attribute is translated to HTML "class", they'll abuse it anyway.

 > In HTML you can see that this kind of misuse is done all the time.
 > Misuse of this sort is one of the reasons why the structural idea of
 > HTML today is more or less forgotten. Why open up that door in reST as
 > well? Instead I'd plead to fully understand which problem is to be
 > solved here.

The problem to be solved here is that the document or application
author wants to tag a document element for later selection.  This
typically means they want to identify a variation of the document
element for special processing or formatting.  We want to add
functionality to allow this type of tagging/identification, so that
minor variations can be implemented without changes to the Docutils
code.

I think "class" is as good a term as any.  It's usage is identical to
that of "a constellation-class starship" or "first-class postage" or
"economy-class seat".  From my dictionary,

     1. a number of persons or things regarded as belonging together
     befcause of common attributes, qualities, or traits; kind; sort.
     ... 13. *Math.* a set; a collection.

 > It should be called ``format`` if this is the intended meaning.

"Format" is not the intended meaning.  The purpose of the attribute is
to indicate an "is-a" relationship, not "format-as".  So '<block_quote
class="epigraph">' means "this is an epigraph-class block quote".  It
doesn't specify any formatting; it implies "do with it as you will".
I recommend against format-specific use.

 > In my years and years of programming and making concepts for
 > programming tasks I learned one thing: The best thing you can have
 > is a good concept matching the thing you want to implement most
 > closely.  For that you need to understand what you want to implement
 > and in cases like this find a name which transmits this meaning as
 > good as possible.

I agree with this.  If you look back through the mailing list
archives, you'll see many examples where I've agonized over the naming
of something.  I didn't agonize over "class", probably because it fit
the idea well.

One thing I've learned over the years is that sarcasm, disrespect, and
a bad attitude are rarely beneficial in a discussion, especially a
technical discussion via email.  Such behavior usually results in bad
feelings all around, the perpetrator's ideas being dismissed, and the
perpetrator being added to people's kill-files.  Please stop.

-- 
David Goodger    http://starship.python.net/~goodger

Programmer/sysadmin for hire: http://starship.python.net/~goodger/cv