Re: ISSUE-76: Need feedback on splitting Microdata into separate specification

> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:39:00 +0200, Shelley Powers  
> <shelleyp@burningbird.net> wrote:
> > Forget RDFa for the moment: what is it about Microdata that's 
> important  
> > to you, personally?
>
> Microdata is basically microformats without all the problems and without  
> the complexity of RDFa.

Anne, thank you for the response.

I know the problems people have had with microformats: they're not 
precise. However, they have achieved a significant level of popularity, 
and I believe the lack of mechanistic precision may actually help. Too 
much specification, and microformats may have become intimidating to the 
average Jane and Joe.

Someone in one of the threads, I think it was Brendan Eich, mentioned 
something about not over specifying a specification, to allow 
customization or innovation or some such thing. Apologies if I took this 
out of context, but I think that is a viable concern, and a valid interest.

But I'm not a big microformats person, so I won't attempt to defend it 
any more.

I don't want to defend RDFa, either. HTML+RDFa is being published as a 
separate document. RDFa in XHTML has enough use that whatever the HTML5 
working group does really isn't going to impact on its increasing 
adoption or continued use. So, I think it doesn't serve the needs of the 
group to focus on what's a done deal.

So, I return to the same question I asked Henri: what does Microdata 
provide that you need, or want, personally? Not the fact that it isn't 
RDFa or Microformats, neither of these strike me as a strong argument 
favoring Microdata. I don't think it speaks well of Microdata that the 
only support it seems to have is from people who don't like something 
else. I would think that people would have to be interested in Microdata 
for itself, don't you think?

Outside of that, why do you feel that it _has_ to be in the HTML5 
specification? We talked about all markup being in the HTML5 spec, but 
RDFa isn't, microformats won't be--we've seen that extensions or uses of 
the markup can exist independently. Why is it essential for Microdata to 
actually be part of the HTML5 specification?

>
> I don't think removing Microdata from HTML5 because HTML5 is too big 
> is a  
> good argument personally. I agree that it would be good if HTML5 was 
> made  
> smaller, but then we should make an effort to remove the bits that are 
> not  
> (proposed to be) core to HTML. Rather it should be about splitting out 
> the  
> Window object, script execution, event loop and queue, and other such  
> aspects. That would make the specification on HTML more focused I think,  
> removing core bits of the language just makes it scattered.
>
>

I agree with you about removing the Window object, script execution, 
event loop and queue and so on. I agree 100% that it would make the spec 
more focused. Hopefully a closer look at these issues would be a healthy 
next, and separate step, from this discussion.

Shelley

Received on Thursday, 15 October 2009 14:41:26 UTC