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HTML

Davide Pugliese
Davide Pugliese
4,091 Points
Posted by Davide Pugliese
Davide Pugliese
4,091 Points

<div> When is it needed? - Coding best practices

Hello, I am taking the time to test and make practice with what I reviewed to improve my skills. One thing that I noticed immediately sitting now and starting to code is Nick Pettit clean way of coding. He just does not add code unless is really necessary (and it's a good thing considering that our code is going to be reviewed also by Google Page Speed for SEO purposes later on or at least I always check that as well).

 <header>
      <a href="index.html" id="logo">
        <h1>Nick Pettit</h1>
        <h2>Designer</h2>
      </a>
      <nav>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="index.html" class="selected">Portfolio</a></li>
          <li><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
          <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </header>

Many people I know of (which it does not mean they are doing it right) would probably use div like so:

<div  id="logo">
       <a href="index.html">
          <h1>Nick Pettit</h1>
          <h2>Designer</h2>
       </a>
</div>
<div id="navigation">
          <nav>
            <ul>
              <li><a href="index.html" class="selected">Portfolio</a></li>
              <li><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
              <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
            </ul>
        </nav>
</div>

HTML 5 now provides also the section element. Therefore I ask myself, with HTML 5, when a div is really needed.

Thank you,

Davide

1 Answer

Ryan Duchene
Ryan Duchene
Courses Plus Student 46,022 Points

I usually use divs when it doesn't make sense to use anything else. As a container, for instance.

<header id="header" class="wrapper">
  <div class="container">
    <!-- more code here -->
  </div>
</header>

Nothing else really seems to fit in that particular job, so I just use a div. :) In this area, nothing you do or I do or anyone else does is inherently wrong, but I do think they're missing out on a valuable thing.

As an aside, while we're talking about semantic HTML, I have written a big post on good practices. It's a little long, though.