Re: Producing Atom

On Sun, 4 Oct 2009, Sam Ruby wrote:
> > >
> > > Furthermore, why couldn't additional specifications define 
> > > additional information to be placed into the feed?
> > 
> > They could, but that wouldn't change whether HTML5's algorithm alone 
> > produced conforming Atom.
> 
> What does an HTML5 to Atom algorithm need to be in the HTML5 spec?
> 
> If it were in a separate spec, it could normatively reference the vCard 
> algorithm.

The point presumably is not just a political "HTML shouldn't reference 
vCard"; my understanding is that there are technical reasons for which we 
would want the basic HTML algorithms to not reference specific microdata 
vocabularies. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any problem with just having 
the algorithm in HTML5 and referencing he vocabulary, presumably. Putting 
the algorithm in a separate spec presumably wouldn't change the technical 
requirments here.

The HTML-to-Atom conversion IMHO should be in HTML5 for the same reason 
the HTML-to-RDF and HTML-to-JSON conversions are in HTML5: they are a key 
part of the language and address specific use cases that have been brought 
forward. Being able to interpret HTML as a feed is a fundamental aspect of 
the language, it's not an arbitrary secondary feature. (For example, it is 
the reason behind the existence of <time pubdate> and its requirements.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Sunday, 4 October 2009 21:51:34 UTC