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In my opinion, kids in schools should be taught *document semantics* using Markdown (yes, we'll need to settle on a dialect 😜 ) rather than a couple megacorps' proprietary word processors, which have horrible interfaces (with which almost no one knows how to create semantically valid documents).
Then they can deploy their semantically valid content in any number of worthy contexts. Unlike the products of the word processor.
Why not Runoff or Tex for proper formatting instead of just writing?
@colinsmatt11 because Markdown is widely implemented, broadly applicable, and has a rich set of tools to worth it at any/every level. There might well be 'better' options for some formulation of betterness, but I think Markdown is the sweet spot for now. Certainly far sweeter than DOCX.
@lightweight @colinsmatt11 I'm not a big fan of popularity contests/monopolies driving technology choices, because it leads to decisions like choosing markdown over TeX, python for embedded programming, Windows over Linux, etc.
It's why we have all office suite tools designed like MS Office instead of the much better examples that used to exist when there was competition.
Of course I have no idea what "semantically valid documents" means. Do you have a link?
@lwriemen I haven't found a good reference to describe 'semantic valid documents'. We touch on it in one of our OERu courses: https://course.oeru.org/lida100/unit-1-2/learning-in-a-digital-age/reading-and-note-taking/ in effect it means that elements of content are labelled/designated based on their *role* in the content, not how that role is laid out or formatted. Separation of meaning from appearance. Another example: HTML is (mostly) semantic, and appearance/layout/formatting is handled by CSS. @colinsmatt11
@lightweight
From what I pieced together from various applications of semantics, I'd call it "meaningful application of visual formatting to syntactically correct documentation." i.e., you don't use the header markup on a paragraph.
@colinsmatt11
@lwriemen that's part of it. Basically, you make sure that all the elements of your document are labelled correctly based on their function, without any concern about their appearance. That's a separate problem. Semantic markup, for example, allows us to build an accurate document 'tree' of its structure, reflecting the author's intended hierarchy of different elements. @colinsmatt11
@lwriemen @colinsmatt11 such correct markup is, for example, crucial for people using assistive technologies like screen readers. It's also vital for people wanting to alter the 'look and feel' of an existing website and have all the content reflect those changes *without having to be rewritten*.
@lwriemen @colinsmatt11 semantically valid content can also usefully be re-used in ways its original author hadn't anticipated, like going from a book to a website, or website to a phone app or phone app to a ticker tape reader. Or whatever. An earlier attempt at fully semantic markup was DocBook, an XML variant created by the publishing industry, wanting to achieve the noble goal of having a 'single source of truth' that could be transformed into any use case (& stored in version control).
Thanks for that explanation. @lightweight @colinsmatt11
