[uf-discuss] Size considerations (or how to choose abbreviations)

[Charles Roper]

On 20/10/06, Brian Suda <brian.suda at gmail.com> wrote:
> --- the tricky thing is that there are no namespaces in Microformats,
> so if you use cur, sure it is scopped to 'money', but it is now a
> 'reserved word' for all of microformats. As it was pointed out in a
> previous message, then what happens to 'cursor' or 'current', you
> can't do: <span class="time"><span class="cur">now()</span></span>
> even thought that 'cur' is scoped to some ficticious 'time', it still
> would mean 'currency'.

This is what I suspected and is why I'm uncomfortable with using "sci"
in the species microformat. I mean, for me, if that were to be used as
an abbreviation, it would be for the word "science" (as in sci-fi),
rather than "scientific name". If the species uF were to grab it, then
no other future format could then use it, even if said future format
needed an abbreviation of the word "sci". All hypothetical, of course,
but you catch my drift.

As microformats proliferate, I think the namespace issue could become
more troublesome. It's best to think carefully about these issues now,
rather than a few months/years down the line when it becomes more of a
problem. I'm personally holding out for "cur" to be used in a curry
microformat. ;)

Cheers,

Charles