[whatwg] Annotating structured data that HTML has no semantics for

[Shelley Powers]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>
> On May 14, 2009, at 5:18 AM, Shelley Powers wrote:
>
>> So much concern about generating RDF, makes one wonder why we didn't 
>> just implement RDFa...
>
> If it's possible to produce RDF triples from microdata, and if RDF 
> triples of interest can be expressed with microdata, why does it 
> matter if the concrete syntax is the same as RDFa? Isn't the important 
> thing about RDF the data model, not the surface syntax?
>
> (I understand that if the microdata syntax offered no advantages over 
> RDFa, then it would be a wasted effort to diverge. But my impression 
> is that you'd object to anything that isn't exactly identical to RDFa, 
> even if it can easily be used in the same way.)
>
> Regards,
> Maciej
>
>
Because one would assume that one way to accomplish a task would be more 
attractive to web developers, designers, parser developers, browsers, et 
al.

In addition, one would also assume that one way to accomplish a task 
would be more attractive in regards to testing, maintaining and moving 
on in the future.

Notice how there is only VHS and not Betamax?

Notice the same about Blu-Ray and HD-TV? People won't buy into something 
while there are competitive specs, and these are "competitive" in that 
it makes little since to use both in a document, though you can now.

The point is, people in the real world have to use this stuff. It helps 
them if they have one, generally agreed on approach. As it is, folks 
have to contend with both RDFa and microformats, but at least we know 
these have different purposes.

Shelley