Re: microformats, profiles, and taking back rel/class names [standardizedFieldValues-51]

Mark Baker wrote:
> On 7/17/07, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org> wrote:
>> Mark Baker wrote:
>> > On 7/17/07, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org> wrote:
>> >> Why not instead of
>> >>
>> >> <div class2="http://example.org/human-resources/employee">
>> >>
>> >> just do
>> >>
>> >> <div class="employee" profile="http://example.org/human-resources/">
>> >
>> > Because no software which knows of @class knows about @profile, making
>> > that snippet semantically identical to this one;
>> >
>> > <div class="employee" profile="http://example.org/foo/bar/">
>> No software which knows about @class knows about the theoretical new
>> "@profile2" either.
>
> Right.  That's why I used "class2" in my examples.
So inventing *two* new things, i.e. a new attribute and a new element,
is superior than simply using @profile as it stands in the header in
HTML 4 and *maybe* expanding it to work off an existing class element?

I think it's generally safer to expand existing things than invent new
ones, especially as the "semantics" of @profile and @class already  are 
sufficient for  the  first  case.

Lastly, why remove @profile? Removing @profile from the header similar
to removing default namespaces in XML, and this use of @profile on class
elements is _very_ similar to using different namespaces within an XML
document. So,technically there isn't an argument against @profile - in
fact,there's a great technical case for extending it.

Now, the argument for removing @profile is empirical and ideological,
similar to the argument for removing namespaces when XML with Namespaces
first came out - that there wasn't enough usage.

Yet I do think that the Web is better for namespaces, and the same
argument can be made for @profile.


> Mark.


-- 
		-harry

Harry Halpin,  University of Edinburgh 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin 6B522426

Received on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 21:48:46 UTC