[html4all] Another summary of alt="" issues and why the spec says what it says

[Joshue O Connor]

Steven Faulkner wrote:
>> I agree it wouldn't necessarily be obvious to the computer, but it's the
>> >user that matters, and I can't really see why the association wouldn't be
>> >obvious to the user.
> 
> becasue being contiguous is a wek relationship and prone to error.

I don't follow. There are plenty of elements and attributes whose 
relationship is contiguous or defined in a linear way and they work 
fine. This comment suggests that writing code in a way that defines the 
relationships in a "non-serial" or more lateral way is somehow better?

Or am I missing something?

I guess you can use of aria-describedby to create programmatic 
associations with content that is in order parts of the document or 
indeed in other resources/URIs but how is this somehow better?

Cheers

Josh