On Dec 17, 2007 2:12 PM, Martin McEvoy <martin weborganics.co.uk> wrote:
> > Any misuse of the VAR element will affect how they
are to be presented.
> > Consider what will happen when proper use of the
VAR element is
> > intermingled with other use of the the VAR element
as a design
> > pattern.
>
> I am not misusing it?
>
> Paul why do you make me work so much?  ...
Because these standards are not to be fiddled with.
VAR elements are typically styles in italics, and depending
on your
styles it can be anything from virulent green to
preformatted text, to
help denote the variables you are referring to.
> Although html 1.0 never really existed as a standard
since then
> <var> is defined as simply A variable name.
>
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/draft-ietf-iiir-html-01.txt
>
> As far as I know <var> hasn't changed since
then.
The XHTML2 specs gives the following example:
The parameter <var>ncols</var> represents
the number of colors to use.
And the HTML5 specs provide the following example:
<p>If there are <var>n</var> pipes leading
to the ice cream factory
then I expect at <em>least</em>
<var>n</var> flavours of ice cream to
be available for purchase!</p>
> <var> is regarded as a Metasyntactic variable
> http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/
texinfo/html_node/var.html
> http://www-fs.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/~huns
zing/QuickRef.html
You didn't provide the QuickRef information from HTML 1.0
for a ``metasyntactic'' variable, where the user is to
replace the
variable with a specific instance. Typically displayed in
italics.
The wikipedia article about metasyntatic variables says
A metasyntactic variable (pronounced
/ˌmɛtəsɪnˈtæktɪk ˈvɛəriəbl/)
is a placeholder name, or an alias term, commonly used to
denote the
subject matter under discussion
It also says about them
it has been plausibly suggested that the real reason for
the term
metasyntactic variable is that it sounds cool
> yes it has proved to be useful in programming but that
is not its sole
> purpose, all it means is this is the bit we want to do
something
> with...?
In all cases of a variable, the purpose of a variable is to
be
replaced with a specific instance.
The Wikipedia article helps to boils this down.
There are three specific domains for variables:
- computers and maths
- physical sciences and engineering
- statistics
It then goes on to state that in general
Variables are used in open sentences. For instance, in the
formula x
+ 1 = 5, x is a variable which represents an
"unknown" number.
2:23 is about as far away as we can get from an unknown
number.
You're going to have a very large uphill battle convincing
anyone that
the duration of 2 minutes and 23 seconds is a variable.
--
Paul Wilkins
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