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Encouraging wider use of semantic HTML

for

From: Jeff Gutsell
Date: Oct 9, 2018 1:26PM

I want to share an interesting conversation that I had last week with a Web
developer. I mentioned to him that I was using semantic elements in my
pages. He responded that he thought this is a lot of trouble for very
little gain, which was the response I had expected.

I told him that these are huge aids to screen reader users, of course. But I
also said I think there are selfish reasons a developer should use them.
They make code a lot easier to read in large, complex projects. They can be
a big boost in searching through code when you don't know exactly what you
are looking for. For example, searching for "<nav" " is easier, sometimes,
than recalling an ID to search for. Searching for "</article" can be an
easy way to jump to the end of some content.

I think it can be easier to read and decipher the code by another developer
when I am it has semantic elements that offer more standard meanings than
obscurely named IDs and classes.



This guy was quite interested in my explanation, and I think he might just
start using the elements.

Has anyone else had any experience like this?



____________________

Jeff

iPhone: (513) 235-7460

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