Über-Semantics

Published on May 27, 2008 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

Premasagar recently published a great demonstration of what can be considered “über-semantic” code. I guess we can thank the microformats community here, which carefully avoids to rely on the semantics of HTML elements but instead uses non-defused classes for everything:

<div class="hentry hreview">
  <div class="vevent entry-content item">
    <address class="vcard">
      <abbr class="fn author" title="Premasagar Rose">I</abbr>
    </address>
    <a rel="bookmark" href="https://example.com/statuses/555/">am</a>
    <abbr class="updated" title="2008-02-17T15:30Z">now</abbr> at the
    <abbr class="rating" title="5">wonderful</abbr>
    <span class="description">
      <a class="summary url entry-title" rel="bookmark tag"
        href="http://barcamp.org/SemanticCampLondon">SemanticCampLondon</a>
      (<abbr class="dtstart" title="2008-02-16">February 16</abbr> -
      <abbr class="dtend" title="2008-02-17">17</abbr>)
      <span class="vcard location">
        <span class="fn org">Imperial College</span>
         <span class="adr">
          <span class="locality">London</span>
          <abbr class="country-name" title="United Kingdom">UK</abbr>
          (<span class="geo">
            <span class="latitude">51.498</span>,
            <span class="longitude">-0.179</span>
          </span>)
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </div>
</div>

The code translates to “I am now at the wonderful SemanticCampLondon (February 16 - 17) Imperial College London UK ( 51.498, -0.179 )”.

This sort of code is horrible. It should be questionable to everyone whether the end truly justifies these means. The only thing I like about microformats acting up like this is that I can keep this post short: It’s crucial to get the HTML right.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)