Re: Why bound prefixes are an anti-pattern in language design

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Elias Torres wrote:
> 
> I'll admit that you're onto something when seeking a hands-down simpler 
> solution for extensible metadata in HTML5. I wish everyone involved in 
> this could let the arms down for a little bit and try to come up with a 
> better solution. Of course, the dream is that such solution wouldn't 
> totally disregard existing deployments because it can re-use existing 
> test cases and user behavior. It should also take into account the 'hard 
> evidence' you have accumulated through yours (and others' experiments) 
> on what works and what doesn't. However, I think that making something 
> up new (definitely based on some of your hard evidence, yet not really 
> tested at least as much as RDFa) is simply not the best solution moving 
> forward.

Note that Microdata was originally based on RDFa.

I agree with everything you say above. If anyone has any suggestions on 
simplifying microdata even further, I'm certainly open to suggestions.


> > [reverse DNS identifiers and URIs]
>
> All of my intro simply to say that it's really confusing when you say stuff
> like: "I included both". I think this part is really the crux of the matter.
> You should be consistent and suggest something because you have data or real
> past user experience to prove it's better and not include "both" to leave
> things up to personal taste.

For some things -- e.g. identifying Web pages -- URIs are clearly 
preferable. For others -- e.g. predicates -- shorter strings are IMHO 
preferable. I don't see a problem with having both.


> I thought HTML5 was about not making the mistakes of the past. If you 
> leave this up to choice, then maybe we need RDFa AND Microdata in HTML5 
> so people can choose, but obviously I believe that would be mistake 
> (without even thinking of which one is right or better).

We _do_ have RDFa and Microdata, and people _can_ chose. I don't see a 
problem with this.


> I've been watching all of this prefix discussion around RDFa hoping to 
> see an improvement on CURIE, but nothing jumps out yet. One obvious 
> choice is not to have them at all and keep identifiers small.

That's my preferred solution also.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 2009 23:42:31 UTC