Re: PROPOSAL: Extending @rel/@rev reserved value set

Mark Birbeck wrote:
> One possibility would be to define the default prefix mapping to point
> to the XHTML-vocab, which would allow authors to write:
> 
>   <link rel=":next" href="..." />
>   <link rel=":prev" href="..." />
> 
> This means that we can still make use of the XHTML values--next, prev,
> license, and so on--but authors wouldn't need to define a URI mapping
> like "xh:" in order to do so.
> 
> Before anyone shouts about this, let me explain why I'm suggesting
> this. Once you have an easy way to make use of the XHTML-vocab values,
> then you could argue that from an _authoring_ perspective our job is
> done; we have provided a convenient way to let authors use a list of
> clearly defined values in their documents.
> 
> This has the effect of changing the @rel="next" problem into something
> else--a 'legacy' question. And once it is a legacy question we can
> apply different criteria to solving that. We could certainly say that
> at this time we don't know how to deal with legacy values, and for now
> these values are completely ignored. The good thing is though, that we
> are not _ignoring_ the XHTML-vocab values; we're merely ignoring one
> way that those values might be written.

+1 - I really like this solution, Mark... primarily because it keeps the
syntax document simpler than the alternatives that have been kicking
around. It will also be much simpler for publisher's to grasp this
concept than the concept that there are magic words that only exist in
@rel and @rev of which they should be aware.

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, your proposal
above would mean that:

1. There is no section on "legacy values" or pre-processing steps in
   the current RDFa Syntax document.
2. We would create a section in the future that would be about
   "legacy processing" or "pre-processing". When would this be done?
3. The current Syntax document would be corrected to cover the ":foo"
   short-hand for XHTML-vocab.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Bitmunk Launches World's First Open Music Recommendation Service
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2007/09/09/bitmunk-music-recommendation/

Received on Thursday, 25 October 2007 19:26:36 UTC