[microformats-discuss] Re: Educationg Others

[Danny Ayers]

On 10/5/05, Mark Pilgrim <pilgrim at gmail.com> wrote:

> The regulars on this list have all been through the full standards
> cycle many times.  We know about edge cases, we know about validators,
> we know about standards.  We know.  We've been there.  We've all
> decided that this way is better.  Not because it's easier or faster or
> sloppier, but because *it leads to a better result*.  Really.  The
> fact that it happens to be easier and faster is just a karmic
> coincidence.

If it leads to a better result, great. But I haven't seen any
compelling evidence for that yet. Yep, it works so far, but then so
does Atom, which followed a more traditional route.

One thing I do find a little curious. A large proportion of systems on
the Web have a long tail distribution - there's value in the
thousands, millions of little thingies, not only the top 10. So I'm a
little surprised to find so many people around these parts prepared to
write off edge cases as so much cruft. As the Web grows, surely the
sum of specific cases approaches the general case..?

Cheers,
Danny.

--

http://dannyayers.com