[microformats-discuss] Take 3 Re: Definition of "microformat" ?

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 9/17/05 10:07 AM, "Lucas Gonze" <lucas.gonze at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/17/05, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar <drernie at opendarwin.org> wrote:
>> I do believe microformats *are* incredibly useful -- I'm just (still)
>> trying to get my head around -which- problems it is truly useful for,
>> so I neither sell them short nor over-hype them.
> 
> If you already have an application context which uses HTML, and you
> want to benefit from third-party hacks, microformats are the one true
> solution.

I think microformats are certainly *a* solution which appears to work
reasonably well.  Nonetheless, just as microformats have improved upon
earlier practices, as a community we should be open to continuous evolution
of better solutions.


> The idea of replacing existing XML formats intended solely for machine
> processing with the equivalent semantic HTML strikes me as irrational
> exuberance.

I see microformats more as a complement to existing well established
interoperable formats rather as a replacement.  Thus hCard<->vCard,
hCalendar<->iCalendar etc.

It's been suggested independently by more than one person that we should
develop a 1:1 mapping of Atom and/or RSS into a microformat as well, to
complement the use of feeds with the equivalent semantics in HTML blog pages
and blog archives.  This seems like a reasonable idea that should be
explored as part of the blog-description-format efforts.

Thanks,

Tantek