[whatwg] data-* [Was:Re: Trying to work out the problems solved by RDFa]

[Julian Reschke]

James Graham wrote:
> It should, perhaps set alarm bells ringing that almost every time data-* 
> attributes come up, people suggest using them to publish data to the web 
> at large rather than as internal scripting hooks. Since the restrictions 
> on data-* are not machine checkable, even the majority of "standards 
> aware" authors are unlikely to heed them. Therefore the net effect of 
> the restriction will be to prevent conscientious standards bodies from 
> using data-* attributes in their specifications. It is quite possible 
> that popular technologies will arise from sources other than such 
> standards organisations and so use of data-* for more than just private 
> scripting may be inevitable.
> 
> It is also possible that features that start off as private scripting 
> hooks will evolve into data publishing features. This again would lead 
> to the natural breaking of the restriction of data-* attributes.
> 
> (I know I have said this before but I forget whether I posted it or just 
> discussed it on IRC.)

Agreed.

So what does this tell us about the point of view that distributed 
extensibility should not be supported by HTML5?

Best regards, Julian