Re: An element modification

Hi Leo,

Leo Wilson <LWilson@xlww.net>, 2015-05-20 00:20 +0000:
> Archived-At: <http://www.w3.org/mid/BY2PR12MB05810F684A944096D2DD82B5D3C20@BY2PR12MB0581.namprd12.prod.outlook.com>
> 
> I have another idea.  As an HTML programmer, I often find it annoying to
> have to type <meta name="metaname" content="text..." /> for every
> different type of metadata.  I think it would help greatly to provide an
> alternative way such as <meta author="name" description="An example"
> keywords="example text" /> and etcetera.  I would want to keep the
> current way as an option, though, for everyone (including me) who already
> used it.

Since we’d need to keep the current way as an option—and we pretty much
need to keep it that way forever—since we have billions of web pages over
25 years that are already using it—adding some additional way would amount
to having two ways of doing the same thing. It’s not usually considered a
good idea to design a language to add a new way to do exactly the same
as some existing thing the language already has.

Anyway, the bigger issue with the specific alternative you’re proposing is
that there are currently around 350 possible (registered) values for
meta[name]. That means we’d need to add all 350 of those current values to
the language as attribute names, and any time someone registered a new
one, we’d need to add that also. And you’d end up with stuff like:

  <meta apple-mobile-web-app-capable="..." aglsterms.protectivemarking="..."

...and on an on.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’d really want.

  —Mike

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith https://people.w3.org/mike