Re: Bold numbers in ordered lists

On 2008-08-27, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <slrngbb03n.hvj.spamspam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ben C <spamspam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2008-08-26, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
What to call things is one thing. What things are is something else. The
two are related sometimes by trying one's best to fit the first to the
second. I am wondering if you think I am saying anything else but that
it is ok in the special sense that I have outlined at length a few times
now?

Yes it is OK in the special sense, but does that make it OK?

Before the word "orange" was invented, people just made do with "red".
That's why people who have orange hair are still said to have "red" hair.

But it would not be OK to describe an orange traffic light as red, even
though you could just about argue that in a special sense orange is a
sort of red. The fact that there is a word for orange, and also another
light which is really red, makes all the difference.


I am not suggesting anyone should call an ol a table or a specially
constructed table, an ordered list. I am attempting - and failing - to
show you something I think is true about the reality. I am not
suggesting that it is good practice to substitute a table for an ordered
list whenever an author feels like it for no particular good reason.

You are suggesting that one time it's OK is when the table is easier to
style?

In particular that it is ok to use a table instead of an ordered
list if it is at all more convenient in a context and that it is ok not
for the reason that it is ok to be a bit naughty or to cut corners but
for the reason there is nothing here that is naughty at all, there is no
corner, there is nothing that is not impeccably ok.

Perhaps this idea is simply unable to be communicated! Perhaps I am
simply wrong?

Depends what you think is not OK: using a table for presentation, or
using a table for data that aren't "tabular"?

You are basically saying I am completely wrong about the most crucial
thing and offering crumbs as compensation.

I'm just trying to clarify the criteria for supposed misuse of a table.

Not interested in the crumbs but thanks anyway! Look, I would much
rather know that I am missing a crucial thing here than any attempts
at diplomacy.

I don't know of any crucial thing you're missing.

[...]
I am quite serious about this, you seem basically to be dismissing the
real heart of what I am claiming which is that the tables that I have
had in mind all the time are not mere presentational devices. But I seem
unable to get this across. The penny is not dropping on one of our
sides. Naturally everyone will suspect it is mine because you humans
tend to stick together when it comes to the crunch.

Well I thought I had understood roughly what you were saying: that an
ordered list is a kind of table. I don't disagree with that part.

Does that make it OK to use a table because it's easier to style? Well
it's good enough for me, but then I'm not a purist anyway. I can't tell
the difference between the teachings of a mythical purist and those of a
real purist.

From where I am standing you seem not to have taken any notice of my oft
repeated words about the left col heading in some 2 col algorithmic
table presentation.

I thought I got that part.

The left col data, if you like, has a meaning! This meaning is crucially
bound up with the data to the right. You cannot move the numbers that
indicate the order in which a procedure is to be carried out. You cannot
move "1." or "this is the first step" to the last row that deals with
triggering the timer. You would spoil the meaning of the table, you
would break the relationships that are intended.

Yes, that's OK.

You surely do not have some naive assumption that tabular means all
numbers and dimensions!

No. I'm sceptical of the idea that there is any authoritative definition
of an abstract table.
.

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