[whatwg] Absent rev?
Smylers
Smylers at stripey.com
Wed Nov 19 12:56:06 PST 2008
Martin McEvoy writes:
> Ian Hickson wrote:
>
> > given the way that the "rel" attribute and the related keywords are
> > defined, rel=author does in fact convey the semantics that rev=made
> > did.
>
> No It doesn't
Yes it does; it's specified that they are equivalent:
For historical reasons, user agents must also treat link, a, and area
elements that have a rev attribute with the value "made" as having
the author keyword specified as a link relationship.
-- http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/structured-client-side-storage.html#link-type-author
> Reverse and Inverse properties are key factors of any Semantics
OK.
> without both @rev and @rel there is hardly any semantics at all just a
> one way stream of information,
That simply isn't true, since it's always possible to define rel=foo and
rel=bar where bar conveys the same semantics as foo but in the opposite
direction; no rev needed.
> which most of the time you have to guess what the Authors intentions
> were.
Not at all, since part of the definition of the rel values says in which
direction they are to be interpreted. For example, rel=author
indicates that the referenced document provides further information
about the author of the section that the element defining the
hyperlink applies to.
> rel=author on the whole only relates to published documents, rel=made
> relates to Documents, Music, Photos, Videos, Sunday Lunch! Literaly
> anything that can be *made*
So the problem is that if I wanted to be able to create a link from my
Sunday lunch to its cook, annotating it as such, I wouldn't be able to
do so because rel=author isn't appropriate terminology to use in meals?
That's true, but given that my Sunday lunch isn't written in HTML
anyway, I don't see how it could be trying to use rel=author (or indeed
rev=made) in the first place! Ditto for all your other examples. By
definition the thing which is making the rel=author link has to be
written in HTML 5, and therefore has an author of some sort.
> > Furthermore, since the definition of "rel" in HTML5 allows
> > relationships in either direction to be defined, there is no need
> > anymore for a separate rev="" attribute.
>
> So essentially @rel in html5 is breaking the semantics of @rel just
> because it cant deal with @rev?
No, the semantics of rel aren't changed from existing use; HTML 5 takes
care not to break existing widespread use.
> > > the misuse of "stylesheet" is trivial and only a matter of
> > > informing authors of their error
> > >
> >
> > Well, who's going to be doing the informing?
>
> The publishers of HTML5
Why should they bother to do that when then can more easily define the
problem no longer to exist?
> > Authors who today use rev="made" could equally well use rel="author"
> > without loss of generality IMHO.
>
> OK then example:
>
> I am the author of numerous websites and I decide (like many people do)
> to place some links on my homepage a portfolio If you like.
> My Homepage is at : http://groovydeveloper.com/
> Here is my link <a rel="author" href="http://somegroovysite.com/"> Groovy
> Site</a>
>
> Above Statement (In HTML4) says
>
> <http://somegroovysite.com/> Authored < http://groovydeveloper.com/>
>
> Which Is rubbish its the other way round
Indeed.
> The Same statement in HTML5 will say (because @rel is a reverse and
> inverse link type)
I don't understand what you mean by the part in parentheses. Please
could you expand on it, or provide a reference.
> <http://somegroovysite.com/> Authored < http://groovydeveloper.com/>
> and
> < http://groovydeveloper.com/> Authored <http://somegroovysite.com/>
Of course not. See my quote from the rel=author part of the spec above;
it clearly defines in which way that relationship applies.
Among the set of relationships that rel allows there are relationships
in each direction (both from and towards the current document), but a
given relationship is always unambiguously defined to be in a particular
direction.
> > If there are redundant features that are only used 0.2% of the time,
> > we should probably remove them, yes. Are there any?
>
> A lot considering that the average website only uses 19 elements[1]
That simply doesn't follow. There are many ways in which hundreds of
different elements could be distributed throughout a population such
that each of them are used on more than 0.2% of pages yet the mean
elements per page is 19.
Smylers
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