Über-Semantics

Published on May 27, 2008 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development, html, semantics (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 Rose 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 been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, 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.)