Re: <PAGE> proposal

Arjun Ray (aray@pipeline.com)
Fri, 22 Dec 1995 20:55:13 -0500 (EST)


On Fri, 22 Dec 1995, Eric S. Raymond wrote:

> > what about scroll-backward behavior?
>
> It's not obvious to me that anything special needs be done in this case.

It's not obvious to me either, but when it comes to tag proposals, it
*is* an obvious question to ask:-)

It's easy to suggest tags that meet specific problems. It's much harder
to design tags with *generic* functionality. That usually means a well
defined *set* of semantics, and the more cases covered the better.

A tag simply to control scroll-forward behavior on visual displays is
misplaced in HTML. The functionality is better placed in stylesheets
which *do* have a direct say in presentation features.

Let's look at this way. If you can describe the functionality with

(a) an adjective: think in terms of an attribute.

(b) a noun: think in terms of a tag.

(c) a verb: think in terms of something else, like stylesheets.

Regards,

Arjun