Re: Microformats vs RDFa

Paul Walsh, Segala wrote:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> *From:* Danny Ayers [mailto:danny.ayers@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 26 January 2007 12:19
> *To:* Paul Walsh, Segala
> *Cc:* Ivan Herman; Susie Stephens; Kjetil Kjernsmo; public-sweo-ig@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: Microformats vs RDFa
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> *On 26/01/07, **Paul Walsh, Segala** <paulwalsh@segala.com
> <mailto:paulwalsh@segala.com>> wrote:*
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> [PW] couldn't have put it better myself. You'll see from Sam's blog that
> it's plastered with Microformats. Why doesn't everyone on this list vote
> RDFa <g>
> 
> Heh, I already did. Though truth be told I'm rather on the fence when it
> comes to RDFa because of the current ties to XHTML 2.0 (and QNames in
> attributes are ugly). On the other hand, browsers & a lot of people
> already support microformats as HTML and they can express perfectly good
> RDF given GRDDL (and eRDF, if need be). But I've been assured by people
> who's opinion I trust that RDFa is a Good Thing, so I try not to quibble
> ;-)
> 
>  
> 
> [PW]  I don’t like the argument that appears to be forming; Microformats
> vs the Semantic Web. Doesn’t make sense as it doesn’t have to be one or
> the other and it doesn’t make our job any easier.
> 

YES!!! I fully, wholeheartedly agree. Microformats are, in some way,
part of the Semantic Web in a larger sense and, with the usage of GRDDL,
they are part of the SW in a stricter sense, too. It gives an easy way
to bring in structured data into the SW, and is, maybe, the best
solution when using simple things like addresses.

However, they are not the full solution. Mainly when it comes to cases
when one mixes lots of different vocabularies, or when the original
vocabularies are very complex, the microformat+grddl model begins to be
difficult to use. RDFa provides a more general, albeit a bit more
complicated, solution which comes handy in such cases.

One of the use cases the RDFa group wants to publish is scientific
publication. Roughly: somebody wants to publish data on a complicated
scientific experiment. The person can do that in an HTML file, ie, to be
shown on a browser, but adding additional metadata using RDFa. The
metadata at hand can be very complex: nobody in his/her able mind will
produce a microformat plus a grddl transform for the gene ontology, for
example; but if using RDFa, that is simply not necessary.

Ivan


> */Cheers/*
> 
> Paul
> 

-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf