Re: FAQ Topic - What is the Document Object Model (DOM)? (2009-11-26)

Dr J R Stockton wrote:

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn posted:
Dr J R Stockton wrote:
[abbreviations and jargon in the FAQ]
The explanations need to be in ordinary displayed text; using some HTML
feature such as <abbr> which may or may not be displayed is permissible
but insufficient.
Yes, an explaining `title' attribute, and a glossary link and entry
would be a good idea.

No, not "title".

Yes, `title'.

The literate expect to see such things in-line in the
displayed text, either as "Eritrean Judo Association (EJA)" or as "EJA
(Eritrean Judo Association)" on first appearance. One should not be
forced to look elsewhere for abbreviations / acronyms.

Your logic is flawed. One uses abbreviations in text in order _not_ to
disturb the flow of reading with complex explanations.

The `title' attribute of an (X)HTML element can and is specified to provide
immediate information as to the meaning of the element's content, both for
visual and non-visual readers: it can be used for tooltips, either
implicitly (many graphical browsers do that) or explicitly (as a CSS-
powered tooltip, scripted too where available); screenreaders would allow
reading the value of the `title' attribute to the user. Furthermore, the
glossary entry can provide more detailed information, and the link to the
glossary entry on the element provides immediate access to the former.
Combining those two approaches avoids using complicated terms in the
original text. This provides the most user-friendly presentation of
textual information and is most appropriate for the Web. There is even a
built-in cursor shape that signifies the affordance of such a link: `help'.

That should be done also for things which look like abbreviations
acronyms but [now] are not : e.g. ECMA (ex- European Computer
Manufacturers Association, now Ecma International) _ or just _ ECMA (now
Ecma International).

If the `title' attribute or a tooltip created using other means would not
suffice, the linked glossary entry would.

It would be better to use
either underscore (which is not otherwise needed)

The underscore is defined as a means to provide underlined formatting
for supporting user agents. If the source code would be displayed
underlined, it would be harder to read.

I did not write "underline".

Underlined text is the possible outcome of using corresponding underscore
characters.

Underscore is a character, ASCII 95, which can be put in News wherever it
is wanted.

Apparently you do not understand that certain characters are given special
meaning, not only semantically, but in actual text formatting, when used in
corresponding pairs: *bold* /italic/ _underline_ While some newsreaders
are more lenient not to consider those characters format delimiters when
they are set apart with whitespace, or followed or preceded by punctuation,
others are not.

I did not suggest that it be put in the HTML,

I was/am well aware of that.

rather that it be added, in place of the characters ` and ` , by the
HTML-to-text conversion process.

Yes, and I pointed out that and why that would be not a good idea. Another
important counter-argument is ambiguity: _ is a valid identifier.

Underscore works better than a space when it falls at the end of a line.

When source code would span several lines, or there would be other possible
ambiguities, it should be set apart differently (new paragraph,
indentation). Regardless, your argument is flawed as a trailing whitespace
character followed by underscore is likely to result in the underscore
character being word-wrapped to the next line, still leaving doubt as to
whether the underscore belonged to the source code or delimited it.

You are not very good at reading English, presumably because of undue
haste. Festina lente.

Pot, kettle, black.


PointedEars
--
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another
computer, another word processor, or another network. -- Tim Berners-Lee
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: AD and Server names
    ... While it's true that the _ is a permitted character in Microsoft's DNS, ... including an underscore isn't RFC compliant:- ... "The labels must follow the rules for ARPANET host names. ... Labels must be 63 characters or less." ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)
  • Re: Usename regex
    ... which have alphanumberic characters and one underscore. ... From what I understand is I can use a regex to do this. ... Think of a string, preferably very long that contains only alphanumeric characters, but end in a # sign. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet)
  • Re: Looking for good naming convention for class attributes
    ... > class attributes with a leading underscore. ... > underscores in the source code makes the job of following the ... two characters to convey that information when one will do, ... varibles with function scope should be 3-4 characters long, ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)
  • Re: escape sequences, cursor positioning
    ... Say the field is 30 characters long. ... underscore, then write 30 spaces, then send an escape sequence to go ... Following up on the suggestion to set the terminal to display ...
    (comp.os.vms)