[uf-discuss] Microformat idea: store hours

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Paul,

To be honest, I have a hard time seeing what (if any) advantage this  
has over just using hCard and hCalendar.  The only question I have is  
whether hCalendar is generic enough to say things like:
> Summer:
>   Monday to Friday, 8AM to 5 PM
>   Saturday 9 AM to 9 PM
>   Sunday closed
> Winter:
>  ....
>  Open weekends except Thanksgiving and Christimas

That is, this does just sound to me like a calendar entry (after all  
hCalendar allows location fields).  However, I can't think of any way  
to represent a "non-event" like "closed", as an exception to an  
existing event.

That's the same problem I see with chains vs. individuals.  I'd like  
to be able to say, "All stores follows these hours, unless specified  
otherwise."  It would be to have a 'class vs. instance' distinction/ 
inheritance, though I'm not sure how.

-- Ernie P.


On Nov 11, 2005, at 11:47 AM, Paul Schreiber wrote:

> I mentioned this to Tantek a few weeks ago, and he said I should  
> email the list.
>
> One type of structured data I would like to see on the web is store  
> hours. It would be really nice if I could go to a web site and find  
> out easily, and in a standard manner, what the hours of operation  
> are for that business.
>
> My first thought is that there is a lot of overlap with the  
> vcalendar microformat.
>
> My second thought is that there are a lot of contingencies/edge  
> cases. For example:
> * what about a web site for a chain of stores, each with different  
> hours?
> * what about a Target with one set of hours for the main store and  
> one set for the pharmacy?
> * what about exceptions, like holidays?
> * what about stores with different sets of seasonal hours?
>
> I'm sure the list has more ideas on this topic, and I'd love to  
> hear them.
>
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>          shad 96c / uw cs 2001
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------------
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D. <drernie at opendarwin.org>
Ex-Physicist, Marketing Weenie, and Dilettante Hacker
Probe-Hacker blog: http://www.opendarwin.org/~drernie/