Hacker News: extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=extra88Hacker News RSShttps://hnrss.org/hnrss v2.1.1Mon, 25 May 2026 01:28:47 +0000<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>The entire purpose of was what it looked like. They changed its definition to not be about what it looked like but why an author might make it look that way, i.e. to bring attention to it. The representation flows from the motivation, there's no need to embed a look in the definition.

]]>Sun, 24 May 2026 15:41:21 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48258174extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48258174https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48258174<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>Because the elements already exist. When the elements were invented and defined, CSS didn't exist and authors had to use elements to make presentational changes. When HTML5 was defined, CSS was well established and it was an opportunity to update element descriptions to get rid of specific presentational qualities.

There are lots of elements, if you don't find some of them useful, don't use them. Other people may find uses for the distinctions; even if they use distinctive styling for them all, they may need to document why they're used, not just for all the authors but for the audience as well; clearly we can't expect developers to know what all the elements are for so that's doubly true for the audience.

]]>Sat, 23 May 2026 23:43:18 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252754extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252754https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252754<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>In practice today, that's fine. Typically authors have a hard time differentiating what "emphasis," "importance," and "bring attention to" mean to them. Therefore, nothing conveys a distinction by default.

]]>Sat, 23 May 2026 19:34:53 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250640extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250640https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250640<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>lol, you should actually read the HTML spec, there are good explanations of all the elements. The whole point of defining semantics is that elements have meaning independent of their default appearance (or any appearance).

> I need to learn more about web accessibility, but if you completely ignore it (and other sane practices) HTML looks really simple.

Everything looks really simple when you ignore vast amounts of the subject and nuance.

Your rules don't mention keyboard or focus behavior, the only mention of either is the association between

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/

]]>Sat, 23 May 2026 19:28:12 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250560extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250560https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250560<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>Well, it took about a decade for web standards to become a real thing and a lot longer for Web Platform Tests to come to be. Still, while there are lots of tests for DOM construction and visual rendering, testing construction of the accessibility tree is lacking (also keyboard interaction testing).

And that's just for browsers, there's no shared spec for the operating system accessibility APIs the browsers' accessibility tree has to be translated into or how screen readers (and other assistive technologies) will use the OS's APIs.

]]>Sat, 23 May 2026 19:06:40 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250362extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250362https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250362<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>Eh, it's fine, elements should be defined for what they mean, not what they look like. The explanation and distinctions made between and other elements (, , ) make sense.

The suggested (not obligatory) user agent styling for is `font-weight: bolder` an agent or authors could use lots of different things to bring attention to what the element contains and treat it differently from .

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/text-level-semantics....

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/rendering.html#phrasi...

]]>Sat, 23 May 2026 18:51:21 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250201extra88https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250201https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250201<![CDATA[New comment by extra88 in "On The <dl> (2021)"]]>There are already well-defined rules, you just don't like some of the rules, e.g. you can't (today) style