HTML Forms - In your opinion, how should they be done and why? (<div> vs. <p>)

Question

I've been a developer for a long time, however forms have always been my least favourite part, more specifically designing them!

I'd really like to know how you do you forms, and why. I've had a few discussions with fellow developers over <div> vs <p> on form fields. Which one would you stick with, and why?

An example of what I am talking about:

<form action="" method="post">
    <p>
        <label for="username">Username:</label>
        <input type="text" name="username" id="username" />
    </p>

    <p>
        <label for="submit"></label>
        <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Log In" />
    </p>
</form>

VS

<form action="" method="post">
    <div>
        <label for="username">Username:</label>
        <input type="text" name="username" id="username" />
    </div>

    <div>
        <label for="submit"></label>
        <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Log In" />
    </div>
</form>

When it comes to styling, it seems you can do pretty much the same with both, so is it just personal preference, or is there logic behind using one over the other?

Thanks for your time :)

UPDATE I ended up following a nice article on HTML5 forms and have actually found it to allow MUCH better styling of forms. They are much more organised from a development perspective too. For anyone interested, it is located here: http://24ways.org/2009/have-a-field-day-with-html5-forms

Answer 1

HTML is all about semantics. There is no reason username or submit should be inside a paragraph (<p>) because it's not a paragraph.

So I would go using <div> instead. Ok, maybe <div> has no meaning at all. But it's better than <p>.