[microformats-discuss] microformats and semantic HTML best practices

[Ryan King]

On Sep 4, 2005, at 3:09 PM, Bud Gibson wrote:
> On Sep 4, 2005, at 17:52, Bryan J Busch wrote:
>
>> In absorbing the microformats principles
>> (http://microformats.org/about/), I've accepted that the invention of
>> a microformat first requires a specific problem to be solved. My
>> questions now are more along the lines of: should I be encouraging
>> myself to prioritize the seriousness of the problems, or even, how do
>> I know this is a problem at all?
>
> One way of answering this question is to ask if it solves a problem  
> for you.  That's step 1.  If it does, then look and see if anyone  
> else has a solution to that problem already.  If not, try inventing  
> the microformat.

But please don't try alone.

> I think one of the issues novices face with microformats is that  
> they are not entirely sure what they are.  Sometimes, the only way  
> to figure that out is to try to do one.
>
> Given my experience, microformats make DOM processing (e.g., screen  
> scraping, ajax) applications dramatically simpler to write and more  
> portable.  If you are doing DOM processing, then you should be  
> using microformats, period.
>
> I'm a little less enthralled than many on the list with the idea  
> that you should start with a community process.  I'd say research,  
> create what you have to, see if it's useful, then go community as  
> part of your marketing effort.

But community is not a feature you can just add to a format.  
Community is a way to come up with better results.

> Prove the value to yourself first.

-ryan