Is the ethos of semantic layout counter to the idea of css?

Is CSS even "correct"?

[Clark]

To be a little provocative here...wasn't the idea of semantic html, Heading Tags, Ordered Lists, Unordered Lists, etc... put there because the web was supposed to be this "open" place where developers can create code for browsers and devices to access the internet and interpret the semantics however they wanted?

Are we actually going with the ethos of the standard by expecting Microsoft and Netscape (now Firefox) / Opera to interpret these designations the same way?

Now there are mobile devices...and we KNOW they will never look the same as IE/FF/Opera in a wider format...

Did we lose something along the way by trying to make it look so professional and laid out so nicely?

Maybe CSS was wrong in the first place? The web is not a brochure. Why can't we just call a menu a menu. Navigation is navigation. A Heading is a heading. And let the browsers live and die by how well they lay all that out?

If we want to have total control of a layout, why not just make PDF's instead of digitizing text as content?

I'm not really advocating any position here, but just asking...did we get this whole wrong? Have we lost our way?

Maybe we could have approached the whole thing differently and gotten people to expect different things out of websites?

[MarkFilipak]

Why Clark! You're a philosopher. <grin>

> ...why not just make PDF's...
HTML is a markup language just like postscript (which is the internal markup of PDF's, IIRC) is a markup language. The difference is that HTML is an open standard.

> ...instead of digitizing text as content?
Digitizing text(?) -- what do you mean?

> Are we actually going with the ethos ... to interpret these designations the same way?
If we are told something is a hammer (a particular type of tool), damnit, it should be a hammer, not a wrench. However, if we are told something is a hammer with the (unspecified) understanding that it is supposed to be a common hammer, and a company produces a roofer's hammer, who's to blame? That's just life. People make mistakes. That includes the people who write specifications. We all start with a ton of unstated assumptions and expectations. We will work it all out in time. (That written, I still will never forgive the CSS folks for screwing up 'em'. They just didn't consult typesetters and gain their insights and experiences. That was unforgivable.)

> ...a little provocative here...
"It's people like you what cause unrest." <grin>