[uf-discuss] 'currency' microformat straw-man proposal.

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello Guillaume,

On 9/21/06, Guillaume Lebleu <gl at brixlogic.com> wrote:
> A little detail. Shoulnd't it be:
>
> <abbr class="currency" title="Canadian dollar">C$</abbr>
>
> ?
>
> CAD being itself an abbreviation.

Not in this case.

And it comes from our "definition" of what an abbreviation is....  An
abbreviation is a less complex form of the full form.

Now in some contexts a less complex form could be shorter.  Like in
"USA" being an abbreviation for "The United States of America".

But not always... as in.... "Friday September 22, 2006" being
abbreviation for "2006-09-22", even though it is longer.  ("Friday
September 22, 2006" is less complex, than the other, for humans to
read and grok.)

The realization one needs to make is that what is (and isn't) the
abbreviation (and what is [and isn't] the full form) is subjective.
Because what is (and isn't) the less complex form is subjective.

That in some contexts, you would be quite right, "CAD" is an
abbreviation for "Canadian Dollar".

But that is other contexts, "Canadian Dollar" is an abbreviation for "CAD".

For us, we are concerned with making thing less complex for machines
to understand.  So the form that is less complex for machines is the
abbreviation.

[...]


See ya

-- 
    Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.

    charles @ reptile.ca
    supercanadian @ gmail.com

    developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
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