Re: ISSUE-55: Re-enable @profile in HTML5 (draft 2)

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Nov 11, 2009, at 07:55, Manu Sporny wrote:
>>>> - Defining the new replacement mechanism for @profile as rel="profile"
>>>
>>> What problem does this solve?
>>
>> A number of other people have done a good job of outlining why the
>> HTML5-EPB spec exists. Were you asking a more specific question, or do
>> you have a more specific critique of the HTML5-EPB spec?
> 
> It seems to me that changing from @profile to <link rel=profile> is 
> merely a syntactic transformation. I was asking what problem the 
> syntactic transformation solves compared to using @profile (or having 
> neither @profile nor rel=profile).

It solves the problem of head/@profile being removed in HTML5.

I agree that getting head/@profile back in would resolve that issue.

> ...
>> 1. For spec authors that would like to define extended processing
>> behavior, there is currently no mechanism to do so provided in HTML5.
> 
> What's the point of introducing rel=profile instead of reusing @profile 
> from HTML 4.01?
> 
>> 2. There are a number of communities that have taken issue with @profile
>> being made obsolete, not because they have nothing better to do, but
>> because it affects them and has repercussions on their work. If HTML5
>> got rid of @profile and nobody complained, that would help to prove that
>> it is a useless feature - however, that has not happened.
> 
> So why are you introducing rel=profile and still obsoleting @profile 
> instead of writing a Change Proposal to introduce @profile as non-obsolete?

...and conforming.

It would be conforming so it can be used while specs that use it can be 
upgraded. It would be obsolete because link/@rel=profile could replace 
it in the mid-term.

As a related thought: if we come to the conclusion that the 
functionality is useful, and should be extended to allow scoping, that 
*still* could be done using @profile (for instance, by allowing it on 
block-level elements as well).

BR, Julian