The value of semantics

Bruce Lawson is one of my favorite technical speakers, and it was great to see him at @media conference in London this summer. A few days ago he wrote HTML5 Semantics which gives a nice round-up of the state of semantics in November 2011. A great read even if you’re already fluent with semantics.

Bruce’s article is a fine counterweight to the article Our Pointless Pursuit Of Semantic Value by Divya Manian which raised some eyebrows a few weeks back. I think it was somewhat tongue in cheek (which she also admitted in one of the comments), but all opinions are welcome. Be sure to read the response by Jeremy Keith.

Bruce Lawson in London 2011.

In fact, grab a big cup of coffee, read all three articles and make up your own mind.

I wrote quite pessimistic about semantics five years ago in Why Web 3.0 will fail and the demi-god Andy Budd was even more negative in Semantic coding seven years ago. I believe that semantics still have a very long way to go, but at least things are moving forward.