Re: Design Principles

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no> wrote:
> Jonas Sicking On 09-05-27 01.49:
>>
>> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Kornel On 09-05-26 16.06:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 26 May 2009, at 12:18, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2.4. Pave the Cowpaths
>>>>>>   = this to me also supports building on existing profile related
>>>>>> authoring practises such as microformats. Or is it only those
>>>>>> microformatters that do /not/ use @profile that represent a cowpath?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> While microformats claim to need a profile attribute in practice they
>>>>> do
>>>>> not use it I believe for consuming etc.
>>>>>
>>>
>>> The microformats points to  /HTML 4/ which says that one can establish
>>> profile page URIs and  link to them via @profile. The HTML 4 spec here
>>> presents /more/ than a mere attribute specification, it presents a "sub
>>> specification system". Where is the "claim" in this?
>>>
>>> Do you suggest that authors establish profile pages for describing meta
>>> data
>>> profiles, but that actually /using/ these URIs in order to inform what
>>> conventions that are being followed  should be prohibited? This seems
>>> very
>>> contrary to what the Web is about.
>>>
>>> So the question is still /what/ in this is it that represents a cow path?
>>>  * HTML 4 /has/ a method for defining meta data profiles:  A single
>>>    web page that represents the profile. Do we need to change that
>>>    cowpath?
>>>  * HTML 4 [snip] {uses a} URI, the most common cowpath of all, for
>>>    pointing to the profile that is being used. Do we need another
>>>    cowpath than a URI?
>>>  * When you describe how some _User Agents_ do not use the URI for
>>>    anything, then I think you are stretching the cowpath concept,
>>>    cowpaths do not pertain to what User Agents do.
>>>
>>
>> I believe that the term 'cow path' refers to something that has a lot
>> of usage. I.e. something that people use or do a lot.
>>
>> So I definitely agree that the fact that UAs don't use the profile
>> attribute does not make it a non-cow-path.
>>
>> The question is instead, do pages use the profile attribute.
>>
>
> That is only one of the questions (see above).

The first two questions:

>>>  * HTML 4 /has/ a method for defining meta data profiles:  A single
>>>    web page that represents the profile. Do we need to change that
>>>    cowpath?

Is it a cow path? I.e. are there enough pages out there that *uses*
@profile (i.e. not just has something in the profile attribute)? For
example I wouldn't think that a page with only hCard data, but with an
XFN @profile counts as stomping a cow path.

If @profile isn't a cow path the above question doesn't seem to apply?

>>>  * HTML 4 [snip] {uses a} URI, the most common cowpath of all, for
>>>    pointing to the profile that is being used. Do we need another
>>>    cowpath than a URI?

Again, is @profile="uri" a cow path? If not, the above question
doesn't seem to apply.


> Also note that the design
> principle talks about "consider cowpaths instead of inventing something
> new". It doesn't say "consider if something is a cowpath, and if it isn't,
> then consider dropping the feature".

IIRC there is also a design principle that talks about solving real
world problems. *If* @profile hasn't solved any real world problems in
the decade that it has been deployed, I would think that we can claim
that it doesn't fulfill that design principle.

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 27 May 2009 02:08:51 UTC