HTML 4.01 is relevant to HTML5 in that it was the direct precursor to HTML5.
Put another way, when I learned a lot of the HTML we all use every day there was no HTML5.
By agreeing with the original reply and looking into why, I saw that it was defined in a specification I have read several times (HTML 4.01[0]). I knew CODE being vague was a thing and was part of why I didn't use it much, so seeing SAMP was similar explained why it would have slipped my mind or I totally glossed over it.
Another reply pointed out that <pre> is the block-level styling element I want and that <code> or <samp> make more semantic sense inline and nested. This does make sense to me and I thought it was funny that in a technical document like an HTML specification they would note the importance of the elements in technical documents but not give any example or further explanation.
Yet another reply corrected me again, that SAMP is defined with a monospace font-family in the CSS2 specification[1]! Now I can complete why I used to be wrong and now am not: <pre> always worked by default to get a monospace font and preserve literal whitespace in rendering. <samp> may have, I'd be interested to know but not interested enough to do research into old browsers' specific rendering. The entire <samp> thing was effectively unknown to me. <code>, while similarly defined in HTML, did not have that default font set and thus would not work in a spec-compliant browser by default unless they extended the specification in that browser. That is why in my head I used to prefer <pre> over <code> and that was all; and also why I enjoy posting in communities like these!
> If I'm not mistaken, even Google amp is considered valid HTML5?
So far as I know (I haven't kept up with this level of detail in AMP) it is entirely implemented via some subset of HTML/JS/CSS: presumably any Google AMP would then include valid HTML5.
Put another way, when I learned a lot of the HTML we all use every day there was no HTML5.
By agreeing with the original reply and looking into why, I saw that it was defined in a specification I have read several times (HTML 4.01[0]). I knew CODE being vague was a thing and was part of why I didn't use it much, so seeing SAMP was similar explained why it would have slipped my mind or I totally glossed over it.
Another reply pointed out that <pre> is the block-level styling element I want and that <code> or <samp> make more semantic sense inline and nested. This does make sense to me and I thought it was funny that in a technical document like an HTML specification they would note the importance of the elements in technical documents but not give any example or further explanation.
Yet another reply corrected me again, that SAMP is defined with a monospace font-family in the CSS2 specification[1]! Now I can complete why I used to be wrong and now am not: <pre> always worked by default to get a monospace font and preserve literal whitespace in rendering. <samp> may have, I'd be interested to know but not interested enough to do research into old browsers' specific rendering. The entire <samp> thing was effectively unknown to me. <code>, while similarly defined in HTML, did not have that default font set and thus would not work in a spec-compliant browser by default unless they extended the specification in that browser. That is why in my head I used to prefer <pre> over <code> and that was all; and also why I enjoy posting in communities like these!
> If I'm not mistaken, even Google amp is considered valid HTML5?
So far as I know (I haven't kept up with this level of detail in AMP) it is entirely implemented via some subset of HTML/JS/CSS: presumably any Google AMP would then include valid HTML5.
[0]: linked in my original post
[1]: https://drafts.csswg.org/css2/sample.html