title attribute and
abbreviatedclassnames(Was:[uf-discuss]Currency Quickpoll:
Preliminary results)
Mike Schinkel
mikeschinkel at gmail.com
Thu Oct 19 21:29:04 PDT 2006
>> --- one of the main goals of microformats is to make data Human Readable.
Which means visible. In your examples the USD and DKK values are no longer
human readable values
FYI, my examples were meant in the case where USD wasn't part of the visible
HTML prior to Microformat markup. If it was necessary, this could work
abeit a bit redundant (and for the moment, ignoring the other issues you
brought up):
<abbr class="currency usd">$5.99</abbr> USD
<abbr class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</abbr> kr
>> - we use the <abbr> element alot of the time to get the Machine readable
portion way from users, and give them the more friendly human-readble
string.
I used <abbr> by happenstance; I could just as likely chosen <span> when I
crafted my example. I wasn't really aware of the difference. As an aside, I
think this identifies some holes in introductory information somewhere
(although as I looked for it, I couldn't find specific examples; maybe it
was how things have been discussed on the list?)
So I am just starting to grok how you have been using <abbr> vs.
<span>/<div> but practically what I remember hearing and reading to date was
that classes and titles can be equally applied to any HTML element, so that
made me think they were all equal. But what I'm now learning is that,
although they are all equal, <abbr> is more equal than others. Right?
I don't know how I would have made me understand that before now, but if I
take a stab at it maybe what would help would be examples in places like
this: http://microformats.org/wiki/semantic-xhtml-design-principles Maybe
when I read the FAQ inititially I was still too overwhelmed with everything
to comprehend that part, instead thinking "I'll study that part later..."
Anyway, FWIW on that subject.
>> I still think this is bad semantics. I don't think "USD" is really a
title for "$5.99""
I'll go with that. Especially since I wasn't really aware of the semantics
when I proposed the example. That said, is this any more acceptable (<span>
instead of <abbr>?
<span class="currency usd">$5.99</span>
<span class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</span>
But of course you made a good point about "minting an XMDP file" and not
wanting to enumerate all the currencies, so that one is specifically bad.
But is this?
<span class="currency" title="USD">$5.99</span>
<span class="currency" title="DKK">35.66 kr</span>
Or this?:
<span class="currency" title="5.99 USD">$5.99</span>
<span class="currency" title="35.66 DKK">35.66 kr</span>
I think I'm starting to get your objections; in the browser for the four
prior examples you would see "USD", "DKK", "5.99 USD", "35.66 DKK" none of
which might be the best for those numbers, right? (Though I'm not sure what
title would be appropriate. Hmmm.)
>> the previous answers were sort of techy, do they make sense? or are you
looking for a more concrete explaination?
Oh, I'm very technical, but also a business person of the entreprenurial
bent. But I need to see things technically to understand them, so it was
perfect. When I said I was here partly to learn, I meant more about the
social aspects of the semi-standards process and of this group in particular
as if it were just technical I wanted I could probably go off and learn that
in a vaccuum.
>> I personally like this idea:
>> <span class="money"><abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr>
>> <span class="amount">5.99</span></span>
I'm still really bothered by the *amount* of markup for something that is,
w/o markup, very tiny.
>> It has worked well for ADR, TEL, EMAIL in hCard and is also being
explored for UIDs.
>> <span class="uid"><span class="type">ISBN</span>:<span
class="value">1234567890</span></span>
Let's look at hCard using mine as an example. It doesn't feel wrong to have
one container around something (i.e. one <div>, one <span>, one <abbr>,
etc.) And my hCard marks up a lot of text; lots of things I'd be doing
anyway:
<address class="vcard">
<img
src="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/images/MikeSchinkel_120x120.jpg"
class="photo">
<a target="_blank" class="url fn"
href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/" rel="tag">Mike Schinkel</a>
<div class="org">
<a target="_blank" class="url"
href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/">Guides, Inc.</a>
</div>
<a target="_blank" class="email"
href="mailto:mikes at guidesinc.com">mikes at guidesinc.com</a>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Atlanta</span>, <span
class="region">Georgia</span><br/>
<span class="country-name">USA</span>
</div>
<span class="tel">404-474-8948</span> (w)<br/>
<span class="tel">404-276-1276</span> (c)<br/>
</address>
Now strip out the Microformats and you get the following (assuming I *don't*
use <span>s on City/State/Country and telephone numbers, etc. for formatting
to make it very tight):
<address>
<img
src="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/images/MikeSchinkel_120x120.jpg">
<a target="_blank"
href="http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/">Mike Schinkel</a>
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.guidesinc.com">Guides,
Inc.</a>
<a target="_blank"
href="mailto:mikes at guidesinc.com">mikes at guidesinc.com</a>
Atlanta, Georgia<br/>
USA<br/>
404-474-8948 (w)<br/>
404-276-1276 (c)<br/>
</address>
And MS-Word's statistics quotes me 682 vs 400, or just a little more than
70% bloat. That's probably acceptable.
However, for money we have:
<span class="money">
<abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr>
<span class="amount">5.99</span>
</span>
Versus:
$5.99
Or (to give it a fighting chance)
<span class="money">$5.99</span>
Where MS-Word quotes: 108, 6, and 33, or between 1800% bloat and 327% bloat,
respectively. Now call me pedantic, but I just don't think that is going to
be well received in the general web development community and w/o good
reception we won't be taken seriously and won't get adoption. I really think
it would make sense to see what a broad cross section of web developers feel
about this issue via a non-biasing survey before carving a bloated standard
like this in stone.
However, I didn't come here to make waves. If I'm the only one bothered by
it I will acquiesce and hope we don't end up with a situation where my fears
are revealed to have been significant and we wish we had heeded them. If so,
I'll do my damnedest not to say I told you so (honestly.)
-Mike
P.S. Another option is to seriously consider a page-global aspect for
markup. Then it could be a lot smaller for default cases, even in multibyte
character sets.
P.P.S. Sure we can't just lobby the W3C to approve REL tags and maybe a few
more for all (X)HTML elements? :-) :-) :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: microformats-discuss-bounces at microformats.org
[mailto:microformats-discuss-bounces at microformats.org] On Behalf Of Brian
Suda
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:06 AM
To: Microformats Discuss
Subject: Re: RE: title attribute and
abbreviatedclassnames(Was:[uf-discuss]Currency Quickpoll: Preliminary
results)
On 10/18/06, Mike Schinkel <mikeschinkel at gmail.com> wrote:
> However, at the risk of being shot for heresy, has anyone considered
allowing this?
>
> <abbr class="currency usd">$5.99</abbr>
> <abbr class="currency dkk">35.66 kr</abbr>
--- one of the main goals of microformats is to make data Human Readable.
Which means visible. In your examples the USD and DKK values are no longer
human readbable values - we use the <abbr> element alot of the time to get
the Machine readable portion way from users, and give them the more friendly
human-readble string. Jan 1st 2006 is much more human readable than
20060101T000000+000000Z .... but with the <abbr> we still have something
which the users can see. (i that case Jan 1st 2006). With your example, the
USD doesn't really have an equivalent human-readable value, well it does,
and would be "$5.99" or
"35.66 kr", you even agreed that
">> I still think this is bad semantics. I don't think "USD" is really a
title for "$5.99""
So hooking usd, dkk, or other currency TYPE in the class around the whole
value is not ideal, semantically or for human-readablity.
> OR (something tells me this is even worse, but...):
>
> <abbr class="money currency-usd">$5.99</abbr>
> <abbr class="money currency-dkk">35.66 kr</abbr>
--- from a parsing stand point, this gets to be a tricky issue as well.
Besides the reasons mentioned above, there is another issue with '-'
seperated values. What you are attempting to accomplish is to sort of
"double-pack" the value currency-XYZ, by saying that this is a currency AND
it is of a given type.
The trouble with this is that when we mint an XMDP file for the microformat
we have an enumerated list of values for each class. So we would have to
have a value for each 'currency-ABC' to 'currency-XYZ'.
If/When we add a new currency or a ABC value changed (not likely, but hey,
they introduced the Euro!) we would have to go back and edit the XMDP and
since parsers are to use that as WHAT are legal values, we'd have to then
extend/update the XMDP to account for the new currency-ZZZ value, then
increment the version number and all the parsers would have to be update
with the new information, etc....
it is much easier to say class="type" then leave the VALUE of that element
to be open-ended rather than an enumerated list of values.
the other bonus is that it doesn't force authors into one way of doing
things, both of the following are still valid:
<abbr class="type" title="usd">$</abbr>3.99 3.99<span
class="type">USD</span>
> I'm sure there is something just so wrong about this, but part of the
reason I'm on this list is to learn. So why not?
--- the previous answers were sort of techy, do they make sense? or are you
looking for a more concrete explaination?
I personally like this idea:
<span class="money"><abbr class="currency" title="USD">$</abbr><span
class="amount">5.99</span></span>
It has worked well for ADR, TEL, EMAIL in hCard and is also being explored
for UIDs.
<span class="uid"><span class="type">ISBN</span>:<span
class="value">1234567890</span></span>
--
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk
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