Martin, Manu, a brief bit of history. I left the W3C HTML WG and gave up on XHTML2 because I realized it was not "tomorrow" work, but rather "someday" work, or maybe even "never" work, became increasingly frustrated that the HTML WG as a whole ignored their necessary "today/tomorrow" work [1], and eventually decided that it was time that someone started to experiment with the broad semantic HTML *today* work being done by modern web designers, solving today's real world web problems, with shared vocabularies based on existing standards. I met up with Kevin Marks who had similar ideas and microformats was started.
That was years ago (2003-2004). In the meantime, microformats adoption has taken off much faster than any of us could have hoped for, while XHTML2 is largely ignored. XHTML2 wasn't a "tomorrow" technology 5 years ago [1], and it still isn't today. You could say there may be some bitterness/resentment/jealousy/denial about that. Anyway, I'm largely ignoring it, as I'm trying to do my best to ignore the "microformats vs RDFa" baiting / artificial-dichotomy that so many have pursued. We have too much productive work to do to be distracted by such drama. Thanks, Tantek [1] http://tantek.com/log/2003/01.html#L20030114 -----Original Message----- From: Martin McEvoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:47:54 To: Microformats Discuss<microformats-discuss@microformats.org> Subject: Re: [uf-discuss] Today, Tomorrow, and Someday Problems Manu Sporny wrote: > Interesting blog post by Shane McCarron of XHTML2 fame. He has been > involved in the standards community since 1985. His name is on just > about every major HTML standard to come out of the W3C - if you use HTML > 4.01, XHTML1.0, XHTML 1.1, or will use XHTML2 (to name a few), you're > using specs that he had a direct hand in creating or maintaining. > > It's interesting to see his take on how the W3C and the Microformats > community fits into the ecosystem of solving the problems of today, > tomorrow and "someday". The post discusses Microformats and RDFa: > > http://halindrome.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-we-do-what-we-do.html > Thanks Manu for an interesting post, I have made some comments ;-) I am a bit worried about Shane's other post, http://halindrome.blogspot.com/2008/09/rdfa-is-proposed-recommendation.html > Unlike microformats, the idiom for annotating your content does not > conflict with the normal semantics of (X)HTML (e.g., the class > attribute, the title attribute, and abbr). Sound's like a declaration of war from a community who wants to bring Microformats to the fold. > Why would you want to use RDFa? For the same reason you want to use > microformats. Because you care about machines understanding what is on > your page, not just humans. Is it not the other way around in the microformats community? Best Wishes Martin McEvoy > -- manu > > _______________________________________________ > microformats-discuss mailing list > microformats-discuss@microformats.org > http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss > _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
