Re: RDFa RFE: No Mandated DOCTYPE

Hi Sean,

You are right that insisting on a particular DOCTYPE is an odd  
requirement, so I'll double-check with my colleagues whether that is  
actually what we intended.

On your point about the profile attribute, it is intended that it  
will work in exactly the way you describe, and it should have  
appeared in the spec. One point to clarify though, is that setting  
@profile to include an RDFa identifier is not mandatory.

We feel that having an identifier available, but not making it  
compulsory, gives the best of both worlds; authors adding RDFa via  
systems that don't give them control over the entire document, such  
as blogging software, can still add RDFa to their content without  
having to add a value in @profile. However, those who have full  
control over their entire system, and have a mix of RDFa and non-RDFa  
pages can add the attribute, and then check for it to improve  
throughput.

Does that meet your requirements?

(Note that applying this logic would rule out the requirement for a  
specific DOCTYPE, which is why we need to double-check why the clause  
you refer to is in there.)

Regards,

Mark

-- 
   Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

   mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
   http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

   standards. innovation.

On 22 Nov 2007, at 09:42, Sean B. Palmer wrote:

>
> "4) There MUST be a DOCTYPE declaration in the document prior to the
> root element."
> - http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-rdfa-syntax-20071018/#docconf
>
> What's the rationale for mandating a DOCTYPE? I'd rather it didn't
> have to appear; and I'd rather, as someone who is having to implement
> an increasing amount of RDF serialisations, there were an easier way
> of being able to tell whether a document is RDFa or not.
>
> I'd like to propose some kind of attribute on the root element (you
> already have to peek as far as //h:head for GRDDL and eRDF, so an
> attribute there might be fine too; you could even leverage @profile),
> but as long as it's easy to parse I don't particularly mind. This
> could also be used as a hook for validation, note.
>
> I will protest strongly at Last Call/CR if there is no easy way to
> tell whether a document is RDFa or not. This is a top-priority RFE,
> for me qua an implementor of this specification.
>
> -- 
> Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/
>

Received on Thursday, 22 November 2007 10:19:56 UTC