Why have List AND Step paragraph tags?

[Steve Rickaby]

At 17:20 +0200 30/4/07, Eli Har-Even wrote:

> I'm considering simplifying the template by eliminating one
>of the sets of tags. Does anyone have a use-case where having two sets of
>numbered lists has been useful? Is there any reason for having both sets?

There's always a general case for semantically separating different text objects even if their presentation is the same. The trivial case is using a tag called 'Emphasis' to italicise words rather than call the tag 'Italic'.

What you have currently is a template that allows you to discriminate between [procedural?] steps and plain lists. How useful or otherwise it will be for you and your writers to maintain this distinction, only you can determine. If, as you say, the tags are used interchangeably, then clearly it is either not very useful, or you need to invoke the Style Police and bang some heads.

Consider, for example, that your management has a brainstorm and decides that henceforth all the step numbers in your procedures will be in the corporate shade of puce across all the user guides for your three hundred and seventeen models of firewall, or whatever. You might wish then that you hadn't abandoned the 'step' tag ;-)

-- 
Steve