Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 00:46:27 +1000, Lachlan Hunt
> <lachlan.hunt@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>><h src="/images/heading" type="image/png,image/gif">Heading</h>
>>
>>which is better than having to do
>>
>><h><object data="/images/heading"
>>type="image/png,image/gif">Heading</object></h>
> 
> 
> Why is the first example better than the second?  It's slightly more
> concise, but it's far from clear that it's worth the complexity and
> confusion of having two different mechanisms to do the same job in
> order to save 17 characters.  It just seems like a perfect example of
> the sort of thing a well designed standard is not supposed to do -
> don't resolve disputes on how to do something by putting both in the
> standard.

This document explains the reasons why, and gives some good examples.
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq#whyxhtml2 

I also helps make the source code easier to read, cause there's less 
elements.  The reason is similar for making every element be able to be 
a link.  For example, this is an abbr, image and a link:

<a href="http://www.w3.org/ ">
     <abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">
         <object data="/Icons/w3c_home"
                 type="image/png,image/gif>W3C</object>
     </abbr>
</a>

compared with:
<abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium"
       href="http://www.w3.org/ "
       src="/Icons/w3c_home" alt="W3C"
       type="image/png,image/gif">W3C</abbr>


-- 
Lachlan Hunt

http://www.lachy.id.au/ 
lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au