> Why use STYLE as the name of the attribute instead of CLASS? Because it
> matches the <STYLE> element in the HEAD. It makes no sense to use CLASS
> instead, unless you have <CLASS> in the HEAD. In a word: Consistency.
A good argument. I think that the intention was to overload class to
give semantic meaning as well as formatting control.
However, as the consensus seemed to be away from any list of named
classes, and since a thesaurus-type system such as Murray-Rust is using
for CML is unlikely to be an option for all HTML documents, it seems
that CLASS will only be used for semantic markup withing focussed
subject areas where application conventions can be agreed. This means
that generic search engines, for example, are unlikely to offer
searching based on CLASS (which was I think the original point).
I guess this more limited potential usage is still enough reason to call
it CLASS rather than the more specific STYLE, but I agree that the
general document author is likely to find STYLE a more meaningful name.
--
Chris Lilley, Technical Author and JISC representative to W3C
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