[uf-new] Currency Proposal (and Measurements)

[Ryan King]

On Apr 26, 2007, at 1:39 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:

> Emil Thies wrote:
>> Or do you think instead of an abstract design-patter, measurement
>> should be a format where you can use all kind of dimensions and their
>> units?
>
> It looks like measurement should be a new Microformat. If it is
> successful, it would probably replace the currency Microformat.
>
> Before we start speculating, however, there should be a great  
> number of
> examples gathered on how people are publishing measurements online. It
> should be pretty easy to classify these things. Measurements usually
> only have a couple of attributes (unit, scale, value).
>
> What everybody has been re-iterating is:
>
> The first step of the Microformats process is to collect as many
> examples as you can find.
>
> The second step of the Microformats process is to analyze all those
> examples and try to find some similar data that is published in all  
> cases.
>
> Then you go on to collecting formats, brainstorming and finally  
> creating
> a proposal. It is always done in this order because it is the most
> logical way to proceed with a standard.

This is a great summarization of the process for creating a new  
microformat.

Also note that at any of these stages it's possible to decide that a  
new format is not neccessary because there are existing formats or  
techniques that suffice.

Finally, part of the process is to document previous and current  
efforts trying to solve the same problems. For example, the meter  
element in HTML5/WA1[1].

-ryan

1. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#meter