[whatwg] [WA1] The profile Attribute

[Henri Sivonen]

On Apr 17, 2005, at 13:00, Ian Hickson wrote:
> Imagine you use publicly available profiles A and B.
>
> A has definitions "foo" and "bar".
>
> B has definitions "foo" and "baz".
>
> The definitions of "foo" in the two profiles is very different, but
> that's ok, because you specify that you are using profiles A and B and 
> so
> if you use "foo" then it is the meaning from "A" and you clearly aren't
> saying the "foo" from B.
>
> You use foo, bar, and baz extensively in your document.
>
> Someone uses a browser that supports only profile B. Now your document
> will be rendered or processed with completely different semantics, 
> because
> the UA thinks that by "foo" you mean B's "foo".

Is that a real problem or a theoretical problem? What are the chances 
that someone specifying rel='nofollow' or rel='license' in a way 
incompatible with the common usage? The rel attribute has existed for 
years. Are there examples of name conflicts? Are the conflicts so 
serious that the benefit of profiles outweighs the cruftiness? It seems 
to me profiles are solving a problem we are not having.

> That's a fair point, but implementing XFN for user agent B might be 
> simply
> a matter of dereferencing the profile URI,

Single point of failure. Imagine every UA whacking w3.org for DTDs. 
Won't be implemented.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen at iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/