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RE: Alt Tag [sic] Pedantry

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From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Feb 16, 2006 12:09PM

> Now you're just insulting the original poster. I don't see
> anything in there which indicates that he has no knowledge of
> the alt attribute and would attempt to use a non-existent
> <alt> element instead.

I'd rather not go to a mechanic that calls my timing belt the 'timer
thingamabob' and the oil pan as the 'whatchamacalit that holds that
greasy stuff'.

> I don't see what's so hard about understanding that "alt tag"
> is slang which pre-dates even WCAG 1.0, and which is in
> fairly common usage in web design.

It's not slang. It's a complete misunderstanding of a basic concept.
Tags are tags. Tags have attributes. Attributes have values.

Sometimes we web developer call them alt tags because we make a simple
slip up. Sometimes we web developers call them alt tags because we
aren't aware of those differences in the first place.

-Darrel