I just posted a new blog post (it's been a while): Semantic markup, browsers, and identity in the DOM dbaron.org/log/20200221-dom-… 1/5

Feb 21, 2020 · 8:39 PM UTC

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Briefly, what I argue in it as that while we talk often about semantic markup, there's another piece that's probably even more important that we think about less, which is persistent object identity in the DOM. 2/5
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In other words, it's important that the browser can recognize that a section of the page, or a heading, or a paragraph, is the same section/heading/paragraph that it was a minute ago, even as the page is dynamically changing. 3/5
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This is important for various ways that browsers adapt pages to devices or to the needs or preferences of users, from screen readers, to scroll anchoring, to ad blocking. 4/5
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And it's worth thinking about given the popularity of frameworks with a programming model where the developer maps application state to a virtual DOM tree, and the framework then rectifies that virtual DOM into a minimal set of modifications to the real DOM. 5/5
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Replying to @davidbaron
I recall you working on Mobile Text Inflation several years ago. Having the DOM (vs Layout) reflect semantics that persist Layout flushes would have made that more feasible.
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