[whatwg] Where did the "rev" attribute go?

Fri Jul 7 10:50:52 PDT 2006

Hello,

On 7/5/06, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, Tore Eriksson wrote:

[...]

> As for myself, I use the "rev" attribute in an internal project (sorry,
> > no link) at work. I have to agree with Charles/Iliya that the
> > recognition of "rev" is probably going up in the future if the adaption
> > of new microformats continues.
>
> It certainly can't go down.

:-)

> > On the contrary, I would argue that we should get rid of it as fast as
> > > possible, so that we don't scare away authors who are becoming
> > > "semantically minded" by making the language more complicated than
> > > absolutely necessary.
> >
> > I have to disagree here. Removing the complexity in the HTML
> > specification just moves it to the semantic application where the
> > "semantically minded" users have to agree on what the corresponding
> > inverse relations are. In my opinion the HTML spec is the place where
> > this distinction can be kept with the least amount of "interfering"
> > complexity. As your survey shows, there is not a lot of confusion about
> > "rev", just some people having problems with spelling the "rel"
> > attribute. I think there would probably have been a lot of "herf"
> > attributes out there if they were not discovered as easily as they are.
>
> The point is not just that people mis-use the rev attribute; the point is
> that with the exception of a single value ("made"), people *typo the "rev"
> attribute more often than they intentionally use it*.

It's difficult for me to see how they could "typo" it.  The "L" key and the
"V" key on my keyboard at least aren't anywhere near each other.  (It would
suggest to me that if they wrote "rev" instead of "rel", then they either
"meant it" or they "don't understand the difference".)

What makes you so sure they are making spelling mistakes?  Or that they
didn't actually mean it and aren't using it properly?

For example, I tend to use rev-author, rev-comment, and rev-tag quite alot.
These aren't typos; these are intentional.  And I do understand what each
means and am using them properly.

Is the system that generated that report able to "know" that I use them
properly?  Or did it just assume that they must have been mistakes?

Another interesting statistic: people use rel="made" once for every 2.2
> instances of rev="made".

(Sorry if this is in that report you referred us to, but I didn't notice
it....)

How do you know that those usages of rev-made or rel-made were mistakes?
How do you know that they weren't intentional and weren't accurate?

Was the system that generated the report able to figure out which ones were
"good" and which ones were "bad"?

That is *far* more frequent a mistake than other
> typos (the <script langauge=""> typo, which is so common that it appeared
> in the top-1000 attributes, is only made once for every 833 uses of the
> correct one -- and that's another example, just like rel/rev, where making
> the typo causes no ill effects in browsers, so it is equivalent IMHO).
>
> This, to me, suggests that in fact what you call a simple typo is not just
> a typo, to me it seems to really be author confusion.

Again, what makes you so certain that the author was confused, and didn't
really mean to assert rev-made or rel-made?

I guess my question is.... Did the analysis that generated that report just
assume that any "rev" for a label that is usually asserted in a "rel" is a
typo or confusion by the author?  And that any "rel" for a label that is
usually asserted in a "rev" is a typo or confusion by the author too?

[...]

> Just for reference, what was the usage of the "hreflang" and "media"
> > attribute in anchor tags? At what usage level do you feel it is
> > apropriate to compromise backward compability by removing an attribute?
>
> Removing those attributes wouldn't affect backwards compatibility.
>
> <a hreflang=""> was used about as much as <a location.href="">, <hr
> aligh="">, and <td heigth=""> (around 800th in the chart of top-1000
> attributes in the sample). <a media=""> didn't register. <link
> hreflang=""> came in at around 950th, <link media=""> came in at around
> 142nd (stylesheets mean this attribute is oft-used).
>
> hreflang="" and media="" don't seem to cause any author damage. They
> provide a useful hook that can't be done any other way. Thus they seem
> potentially valuable and don't have a high associated cost.

Thanks for adding "media" to the <a> element BTW.  (I'm finding it useful
already in distinguishing RSS and Atom feeds meant for different purposes.)

See ya

-- 
    Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.

    charles @ reptile.ca
    supercanadian @ gmail.com

    developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
 Make Television                                http://maketelevision.com/
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