[microformats-discuss] Microformats, REST, and baseline semantics

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 9/19/05 7:01 AM, "Dimitri Glazkov" <dimitri.glazkov at gmail.com> wrote:

> This was inspired by the "definition of semantics" thread. This is
> probably something well understood by others, but I think it's worth
> even if to repeat it back for students such as myself.
> 
> IMHO, a very useful quality of microformats (at least, the way I
> understand them) is that they piggyback on semantics of well-known
> formats (XHTML). This "secondariness" is what makes the concept so
> beautiful: the carrier format conveys general semantics, while
> microformats concentrate only on the semantics of a specified purpose.
> 
> It is important to state that microformats do not "override" the
> baseline semantics, but rather complement/enrich them.

Precisely.

> When I first logged into the #microformats chat room a while back, the
> topic was "REST vs. Microformats", discussing an article that I can't
> seem to locate at the moment.

I linked to it from the introduction.

 http://microformats.org/wiki/introduction#The_Appeal_to_Simplicity


> It is only today it dawned on me that the similarity with REST and
> Microformats is rather striking: both can be characterized as
> architectural styles, and both strive to rely on and complement
> well-known baseline semantics.

Yes.

> Even without knowing XOXO spec, you can see that it is a hierarchy of
> lists. Similarly, a PUT request means that new data is added to the
> server, even though you might not know what data is.
> 
> Does this make any sense?

It makes perfect sense.

Thanks,

Tantek