[whatwg] microformats incompatible with WebApps 1.0 ?

Mon Dec 11 16:56:17 PST 2006

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006, Karl Dubost wrote:
> > > 
> > > <link rel="hcard" href="http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns"/>
> > > <link rel="hcard" href="http://www.w3.org/2006/03/hcard"/>
> > 
> > I don't really understand how that would solve the problem; could you 
> > elaborate?
> 
> ok. For microformats it is mandatory to have a profile URI in the head

Mandatory but rarely done, so only mandatory de-jure. De-facto it's 
optional and doesn't do anything.

> it helps specifically parsers.

Parsers rarely actually pay any attention to profile="", both because most 
content omits it, and also because it's harder to do so. So while 
profile="" was originally intended to be used by parsers to reduce 
ambiguity, in practice it isn't used by them and doesn't help them.

> It has also the benefits that an authoring tool can download 
> automatically XMDP profile for creating an help to edit microformats.

Auto-generated UI is rarely optimal, though.

> So a page containing microformats looks like that.
> 
> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
>           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
> <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
>       <title>Tantek's Thoughts</title>
>       <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

In HTML5, the above can now be written as:

   <!DOCTYPE HTML>
   <html>
    <head>
     <title>Tantek's Thoughts</title>

...which is far easier to write and understand.

> Then in the page there are things like
> 
> <ul class="xoxo facets">
>    <li><a href="http://technorati.com/profile/tantek"
> rel="me">Technorati</a></li>
> </ul>
> 
> rel="me" has a meaning because of the profile up there.

With the new proposal, the above still works, but doesn't require the 
profile attribute.

> With the new proposal
> 
> * People can add this information even if they do not have access to the
> template (head section). Most common use case form editing.
> * People have it right under their eyes near the information they want to
> describe (if they wish it).
> * Parsers can still have the information to disambiguate when necessary.

With the spec as written now, however, people still don't need access to 
the <head>.

The disambiguation thing is nice in theory (which is why I wrote a 
detailed normative description for how to handle it about a year or two 
ago, in far more detail than HTML4 ever did), but in practice nobody uses 
it and it therefore it doesn't actually disambiguate anything.

> > Unfortunately in both cases we don't really have any choice; for back 
> > compat, <link> and <meta> elements that aren't in the <head> must be 
> > moved to the <head> by the parser.
> 
> Then for back compatibility you will have to keep the profile attribute.

I don't really see why. Nobody uses it. What useful content would you be 
being compatible with?

> See
> 4. Using GRDDL with valid XHTML
>    http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl/#grddl-xhtml
> 
> Parsers are not only browsers parsers.

Removing profile="" makes GRDDL implementations easier and makes them more 
compatible with existing content. How is that not a boon?

> Do you have an explanation for the why of
> 	"<link> and <meta> elements that
> 	aren't in the <head> must be moved
> 	to the <head> by the parser."

It's what browsers do... what do you mean?

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