[microformats-discuss] reuse *building blocks* from *widely adopted* standards

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 7/12/05 12:35 PM, "Danny Ayers" <danny.ayers at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry, I'm arriving late to the party - I missed this list when I
> first looked at microformats.org
> 
> Anyhow given the microformat credo of building on existing standards,

No.

That is not an accurate statement of the microformat principle of re-use,
and "existing standards" is an *insufficient* requirement.

There are *tons* of *nearly totally useless* and *nearly totally
unimplemented*, but existing, standards.

There are *tons* of ridiculously complex, but existing, standards.

Just look at the majority of http://w3.org/TR/


I want to make this clear because I don't want to see this point confused
again, nor misrepresented.


The summary of the Reuse principles is stated as:

 * reuse building blocks from widely adopted standards


This includes *two* key concepts here above and beyond simple "existing"
standards.

1. reuse of *building blocks*, not necessarily the whole thing

This might mean reuse of a whole element, or just an attribute/property, or
just a single value of an attribute/property, or perhaps just a *term* and
its definition.

2. *widely adopted* standards.

Widely adopted means there are multiple, interoperable implementations, in
wide/broad use.  I would hazard that the vast majority of so-called
"standards" do not come *close* to meeting this requirement.


Thanks,

Tantek