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

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Shelley Powers
> <shelleyp@burningbird.net> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Karl Dubost <karl@la-grange.net> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Le 16 oct. 2009 à 11:40, Henri Sivonen a écrit :
>>> >>
>>> >> An example of my concern about RDFa is that in uses syntax that in
>>> >> Gecko,
>>> >> WebKit and Presto parses to a different DOM Level 2 representation in
>>> >> text/html and application/xhtml+xml. I can assess whether a proposal
>>> >> has
>>> >> this property even if the proposal is solving a problem I wouldn't
>>> >> personally pursue solving as a priority. This touches on my activities
>>> >> as a
>>> >> parser developer.
>>> >
>>> > Are there (or do you know) plans to actually implement into some of the
>>> > browsers (only one class of products) either microdata, rdfa or
>>> > microformats
>>> > in the core parsing engine?
>>> >
>>> > I know already some implementations of rdfa and microformats, but as
>>> > external parser.
>>>
>>> I'm planning on getting microdata implemented in Firefox. We'd do this
>>> by implementing the DOM APIs described in the spec, as well as
>>> implement hooks so that it'd be easy to create Firefox extensions that
>>> react to microdata formats.
>>
>> I'm assuming that you would do so if Microdata were separated out into its
>> own document. Would that be a correct assumption?
>
> Yes, that is correct.
>
> However I do think that having the WG "choose" a mechanism for
> embedding metadata is a good thing. We do after all choose mechanisms
> for a lot of other things. For example by putting <video> in the spec
> we say that we believe that this is a better way to embed video than
> by using <object> and flash. By putting SVG in the spec we say that
> this is the way to do vector graphics rather than microsofts VML, etc.
>

But there is more or less only a normative reference to SVG in the
HTML5 specification. SVG is not _in_ HTML5. It's in a separate
document.

As for normative references to metadata, then I would assume we would
adopt the technique in common usage, and I can guarantee that it isn't
Microdata.

Microformats and RDFa complement each other, so I wouldn't necessarily
want to defer to one or the other.

Then there's the case that Manu put forward, that Microdata is very
new, very changeable, and quite uncertain right now. Keeping it tied
into HTML5 may not be healthy for either HTML5 or Microdata.

Based on all of this, the argument to remove Microdata from the HTML5
spec into its own document seems the logical course to take.

> For each problem we solve there are always other ways of solving them.
> However we generally pick one and put it in the spec. We don't rely on
> external spec and say there are multiple ways of doing something and
> you are free to choose any one you want.
>

Yes, but sometimes it isn't really up to the HTML WG to make this decision.

> / Jonas
>
>

Shelley

Received on Sunday, 18 October 2009 22:52:31 UTC