[whatwg] Trying to work out the problems solved by RDFa

[Julian Reschke]

Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>> Right, but microformats can be used without any changes to the HTML
>>> language, whereas RDFa requires such changes.  If they fulfill the same use
>>> cases, then there's not much point in adding RDFa.
>> ...
> 
> Why the non-response?  This is precisely the point of contention.
> Things aren't added to the spec on a whim.  Things get added when it
> is demonstrated that authors will significantly benefit from the
> inclusion of the feature in the language.  Microformats (used as an
> example only) use only features already in the language, and thus do
> not need any spec support.  If they already solve the problem
> adequately, then there is no need to go further.
> ...

I think the supporters of RDFa (me included) claim that Microformats 
only address a subset of the problem solved by RDFa.

>>>> So why RDFa and not Microformats?
>> (I think the question should be why RDFa is needed *as well as* µformats)
> 
> This is correct.  Microformats exist already.  They solve current
> problems.  Are there further problems that Microformats don't address
> which can be solved well by RDFa?  Are these problems significant
> enough to authors to be worth addressing in the spec, or can we wait
> and let the community work out its own solutions further before we
> make a move?  We generally want to wait until a given item is truly
> established before speccing it, so that we can work with existing

Oh really? That's news to me.

If this is principle we agree on that we really should start cutting 
lots of things from the spec.

> ...


Best regards, Julian