Hello,
I'm new to this list. Since I have heard about microformats last year, I
have always wanted to understand why the approach has evolved to become
the following "class attribute-approach":
<HTML>
<body>
<ul class="grocerylist">
<li class="fruit">Orange</li>
<li class="meat">Chicken</li>
<li class="vegetable">Corn</li>
</ul>
</body>
</HTML>
instead of the following mixed-namespace approach:
<HTML xmlns:ia="http://someindustrystandard.org";>
<body>
<ul>
<ia:grocerylist>
<li><ia:fruit>Orange</ia:fruit></li>
<li><ia:meat>Chicken</ia:meat></li>
<li><ia:vegetable>Corn</ia:vegetable></li>
<ia:grocerylist>
</ul>
</body>
</HTML>
Both approaches work fine in a browser (firefox at least), and both
approaches could be generated from the same XML. But having an XML
background I see that the second approach has the following advantages:
* I can define my microformat in a formal XML schema language (XSD,
etc.) - Is there a way to describe formally microformats?
* I can generate code from that schema
* I can filter out easily all the elements of a namespace, validate
it with my schema, and bind it to this code
* I can overload elements with multiple tags (ex.
<ia:fruit><other:example>Orange</other:example></ia:fruit> and
attributes <ia:fruit color="orange" size="2">Orange</ia:fuit>
* ... and in a nutshell, I can reuse a lot of the XML technologies
out there.
Can a microformat historian help me figure out why things came to be the
way they are (attribute class) not the other way (mixed-namespace
approach) ?
Thank you
Guillaume
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