[microformats-discuss] Profiles status

[Danny Ayers]

Hi Brian,

On 10/10/05, brian suda <brian.suda at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have run into the same problem, i started a universal Microformats
> parser
...
> http://suda.co.uk/projects/XMDP/

[snippy snip]

> I know there has been talk about using GRDDL to make RDF from XMDP so
> more assertions could be made.

Right, that's what I had in mind. I've got an RDF store with a sweet
little SPARQL interface, how do I get microformat data into it? The
GRDDL approach works but requires XSLT for each microformat (I think
in principle any kind of parser/transformer would do, just this is the
easy/obvious approach). I made a start on one for hReview a while ago,
but didn't find much pleasure in the activity. There are patterns in
the microformats (as David is doing a good job of documenting), but a
generic XSLT is probably unfeasible. However it should be possible to
at least semi-automate per format XSLT authoring, as long as the
microformats have machine-readable profiles. But I'm now thinking it
might be easiest just to work from instance docs, doing a
parser-generator kind of thing from them.

> Being that people are just now figuring out the power of microformats
> within HTML, I think these sort of things are currently over the heads
> of most people (which doesn't mean we shouldn't stop talking about
> them). Getting into big-picture semantic web will come slowly.

Yep, ok, but it isn't at all necessary to know anything about the
Semantic Web stuff to be able to generate/author material that can be
consumed by such systems. All that's needed is unambiguously
identifiable, well-defined format - which is where microformats are
heading anyway.

The
> microformat.org volunteers are very busy, these are all things on the To
> Do list, so please keep documenting these things on the Wiki, and they
> will get flushed out.

Yep, sure.
Incidentally, I've made a start at coming in from the other direction,
trying to compile a list of model-format correspondences on the ESW
Wiki:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/MicroModels
(Anything you could add, I'd be grateful ;-)

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Danny.

--

http://dannyayers.com