Item — HN Reader

A good editor can automatically fix <hN> values if needed. But if you're writing an html page, you should already know what you're writing (outline, editing, review, etc). How often are you re-scoping everything?

Any discussion like this needs a Tufte reference:

It is also notable that the Feynman lectures (3 volumes) write about all of physics in 1800 pages, using only 2 levels of hierarchical headings: chapters and A-level heads in the text. It also uses the methodology of sentences which then cumulate sequentially into paragraphs, rather than the grunts of bullet points. Undergraduate Caltech physics is very complicated material, but it didn't require an elaborate hierarchy to organize. A useful decision rule in thinking and showing is "What would Feynman do?"

https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...

3 comments

Indeed. Several times I tried to style the tags h1 through h6 so that they were distinguished while not getting too extreme. So I used a combination of font size, weight, underline, and color. When at last I thought I succeeded, I began to ask myself if it mattered. For what reader could really keep track of six levels of headings in single page anyway?

Several levels of headings, along with bullet points and numbered lists, benefit the writer, while you plan your work. But they are not ideal for the reader. I think the best form for the reader is ironically the well-told yarn: a series of well-composed "sentences which then cumulate sequentially into paragraphs," as the venerable Mr. Tufte says.

> How often are you re-scoping everything?

Often twice. Once for when a post shows up on example.blog/ and again for example.blog/2017/post/. It's nice to not have to rewrite the headers inside my blog entries depending on where the post shows up. I really like the newfangled outline algorithm for that.

> How often are you re-scoping everything?

Potentially very often, if you're using Angular 2/React components or Angular 1 directives in various locations on a page.

On the other hand, if that's what you're doing, using heading tags is arguably the wrong thing in any case, since their semantic meaning is not likely to be preserved.