Re: Review comments on HTML+RDFa (was Re: FPWD Review Request: HTML+RDFa)

Manu Sporny writes:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
> > - I found it very hard to follow this document, since it seems to
> > assume full knowledge of RDFa in XHTML and only defines a delta.
> 
> That's correct, this spec does require full knowledge of XHTML+RDFa.

That's unfortunate for those familiar with HTML 5 but unfamilar with
RDFa or XHTML, putting an extra dependency on learning and evaluating
this stuff.

> The document attempts to not duplicate normative content between
> XHTML+RDFa and HTML5+RDFa specifications.

Lack of duplication is obviously good, however it may be that some
refactoring could avoid both the duplication and the seemingly
irrelevant dependency: put the common parts in a third specfication, and
have t'other two depend on it.

But in this particular case I don't think that's necessary.  The
existing XHTML+RDFa specifcation applies to XHTML1.1.  The HTML5 spec
will, when published, supersede XHTML1.1, defining XHTML5 as the current
version of XHTML.  It would seem very odd for using RDFa in HTML5 to
have a dependency chain which involves a standard which HTML5 itself
replaces; it keeps XHTML1.1 hanging around after it has supposedly been
superseded.

HTML5 does "duplicate" information which is also covered by HTML4 and
XHTML1, since it is intended to replace them.  Once that has happened,
HTML5 (with both its HTML and XHTML serializations) will be the only
'current' HTML, and the only one for which RDFa integration needs
defining.

So a standard which completely defines RDFa's use with HTML5 would
indeed duplicate information from previous standards, but at the point
of its (and HTML5's) publication those previous standards would have
been superseded, so longer relevant.

Smylers

Received on Wednesday, 2 September 2009 10:49:23 UTC