[uf-discuss] Re: Microformats Would Benefit From a Pseudo-Namespace

[Jens Meiert]

> > http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070913/microformats-and-pseudo-namespaces/
>
> I hope you don't think I'm being overly critical, I just think your
> reasoning is flawed in a few ways and doesn't line up with the 
> experience many of us have had in working with microformats over the
> last few years.

Currently I still judge that as luck, and it shouldn't belie certain (increasing) likelihood of problems. I don't assume that e.g. companies that experience problems with microformat integration will necessarily tell us about that, either. And I'd usually also claim that better design doesn't introduce new problems, in general.


> > The hCard microformat alone theoretically blocks more than 20 class  
> > names
>
> is true only if you qualify it with "when used in the context of an
> element that has the class name of 'vcard'".

No, and I still hope that the "photo" class example makes that clear.

No matter if a class name that is claimed by a microformat is already used or gets introduced in a project, problems arise when the respective element should be styled differently outside the respective microformat context. An additional CSS rule already means a "problem" since it could be unnecessary by design. Current practice thus needlessly influences the "regular" work, and something like a simple "namespace" could already avoid that.


> Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "mathematically"?

It just means that every new microformat prescribing class names adds to the problem(s).

The microformats community could happily go on with creating yet more names if these were at least neutralized with a prefix or suffix or whatever, while about everyone might change or extend sites just as he or she wants, not being forced to think about possible interactions with microformat elements.


There's a reverse side, though: Several people might indeed want to style elements with the same class names the same way (assuming semantical agreement, this makes total sense). But, it still seems to mean better, more "unobtrusive" design to require CSS modifications /then/.

-- 
Jens Meiert
http://meiert.com/en/