title: Hating container divs and trying to use HTML5 way
body: <p>I recently started some web programming/designing and I'm facing this problem.
  In HTML5 you have these cool tags like <code>section</code> and <code>header</code> and <code>footer</code> and everything.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>My first question raises here: do they behave (in a CSS context) <strong>exactly</strong> like <code>div</code>s?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Moving to a more specific problem, I have to create a website with a simple <code>header -&gt; content (section) -&gt; footer</code> structure (<em>note: I'm no interested in IE compatibility</em>). I would like the central section to expand (vertically) as much as it can, until it meets the footer.
  The "until it meets the footer" part can be achieved through some <code>padding-bottom</code> but what about the "extending as much as possible" part? Note that the footer should stop when, while resizing the page, it meets the section.</p>
  
  <p>I mean, I know with some <code>div</code>s life would be easier, but is it possible that with today standards I still have to wrap the whole page in a <code>&lt;div id="container"&gt;</code> tag?
  So the second question arises...</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Can't I achieve what I would achieve by using both <code>html</code> and <code>body</code> as containers of a <code>div#container</code> by making the <code>html</code> be the <code>html + body</code> part and the <code>body</code> be the <code>div#container</code>?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I hope my question is clear, I know I tend to digress when I write.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Note</strong> for clarity, I will add my HTML structure and some highlights from my CSS here, but I don't know if they're relevant to the question.</p>
  
  <p>HTML:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;head...&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
      &lt;header id="page_header"&gt;
          stuff in the header...
      &lt;/header&gt;
  
      &lt;section id="page_content"&gt;
          stuff in the main section...
      &lt;/section&gt;    
  
      &lt;footer id="page_footer"&gt;
          an almost-sticky footer...
      &lt;/footer&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>CSS:</p>
  
  <pre><code>* {
      margin: 0;
  }
  
  html {
      background-image: url('../res/img/bg-light.png');
      height: 100%;
      position: relative;
  }
  
  body {
      width: 900px;
      height: 100%;
      margin: 0 auto 20px auto;
      padding: 0;
  }
  
  section#page_content {
      min-height: 400px; // ? does this stop the footer from being dragged over the content when resizing?
      width: 80%;
      margin: 0 auto;
  }
  
  footer#page_footer {
      position: absolute;
      height: 20px;
      width: 100%;
      left: 0;
      bottom: 0;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Micro-note</strong> why the hell my <code>body</code> doesn't start from the exact top of the page, while starting a few pixels from the top? Just asking.</p>