[microformats-discuss] When we say "XHTML" do we mean...

[Ryan Tomayko]

... application/xhtml+xml type XHTML, or
XHTML-looking-markup-that-people-will-serve-as-text/html-and-will-not-contain-namespace-information-90%-of-the-time
type XHTML? I'm just wondering how liberal implementors are planning on
making their parsers and whether XHTML is going to be considered by
implementors as a MUST or a SHOULD.

In the scope of the entire web, how hard-core are we about XHTML? Here's the
problem with being too hard-core, IMO:

1. Microformats rock (i.e. are viable) because anyone can sprinkle a little
sugar in their *existing* HTML and get instant value.
^------ You are here.
2. Implementors on the consumption side require microformats to be, and ride
along inside, hard core XHTML (application/xhtml+xml type XHTML).
3. The world must now migrate all their dirty HTML to XHTML.
4. ... and then they have to actually serve it as application/xhtml+xml.
5. and then all their javascript breaks.
6. #1 is no longer a true statement. Go back to #2 and try again.

I don't want to come off as seeming anti-XHTML or anything--I'm all XHTML
all the time (as much as that's actually possible)--but aren't we going to
have to plan on sucking microformats out of, at the very least, HTML
4.01for the next 2-18 years? Will there be a bozo bit?

Speaking of bozo bits, I was going to ask Mark P. how he was attacking this
problem in his implementations atop Firefox/Greasemonkey but the beauty
there is that you can ride on the liberalness provided by the browser's
parser, right? (You weren't going to tell anyone were you.) I'm assuming
that in the event that Mark's DOM-walking code comes across a
namespace-unqualified or, <gasp>, upper-case element that looks a lot like
hCard, that it's not going to care because Mark's goal is to extract
information as opposed to enforcing rules that 99% of the web ignore? Mark,
am I correct that your microformat implementations will handle the dirtiest,
soupiest, unbalancedist markup the web has to offer?

What's the general feeling in the group on this? I can't really gauge it
from trauling through the mailing list archive or going over the wiki.

Thanks,

Ryan Tomayko
rtomayko at gmail.com
http://naeblis.cx/rtomayko/
http://lesscode.org/
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