[uf-new] hAudio ITEM/TRACK debate resolution

[Brian Suda]

On 10/20/07, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> PROPOSAL:
>
> 1. HAUDIO can contain plain text to specify the FN property:
>    <span class="haudio">Song Name</span>

--- i'm not against this, but lets not put this in right now. This is
an optimization. As Donald Knuth said "Premature optimization is the
root of all evil". Lets keep the <span class="fn"> for now, try it for
a few iterations, then we can discuss optimizations later. hCard is
not <span class="vcard">brian suda</span>, it is still <div
class="vcard"><span class="fn">brian suda</span></div> optimization
have been discussed, but there hasn't beed a NEED for this yet, so
lets not complicate hAudio with optimization YET. We might "paint
ourselves into corners" with premature optimizations, so i'd rather
have something working in the wild with implementations, then we can
discuss this further based on evidence rather than assumptions.

> 2. HAUDIO parts are denoted by ITEM+HAUDIO:
>    <span class="item haudio">Track Name</span>

--- i don't think the  haudio in your class list is needed. With
haudio, item and fn, that nesting can tell you everything you need.
Let me edit your examples below to illustrate

> EXAMPLES:
>
> Album with two tracks, simple example:
> <span class="haudio">
>     <span class="fn album">Best Before 1984</span>
>     <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
>     <span class="item haudio">Hokkaido Dream</span>
>     <span class="item haudio">Tokyo Groove</span>
> </span>

The previous would need to be changed to:
<span class="haudio">
     <span class="fn album">Best Before 1984</span>
     <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
     <span class="item">
         <span class="fn">Hokkaido Dream</span>
     </span>
    <span class="item">
         <span class="fn">Tokyo Groove</span>
     </span>
</span>

(this is just expanding the optimization of FN in an item and removing
the un-needed haudio)

> Album with two tracks, more detailed:
> <span class="haudio">
>    <span class="fn album">Best Before 1984</span>
>    <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
>    <span class="item haudio">
>       <span class="fn">Hokkaido Dream</span>
>       <abbr class="duration" title="PT3M24S">3:24</abbr>
>    </span>
>    <span class="item haudio">
>       <span class="fn">Tokyo Groove</span>
>       <abbr class="duration" title="PT4M46S">4:46</abbr>
>    </span>
> </span>

--- this looks fine, except you don't need the class="item haudio", it
just needs to be class="item"


>  * We are creating a number of short-hand markup approaches will allow
>    publishers to write hAudio in a much easier way.

--- i think at the moment we should avoid premature optimizations, we
can re-examine them at a later date.

> These are the drawbacks that have been identified for the following
> approach:
>
>  * "ITEM HAUDIO" isn't as specific as TRACK.

--- this is a good thing, it is just an ITEM. We can reuse all the
semantics of hReview. For things like iTunes "buy this album and get a
video too" now you can still use ITEM to represent a nested VIDEO or
PDF or other formats, not just AUDIO.  Using the class="type" you
could specific what it is, track, video, pdf, etc. If there is no TYPE
it is assumed to be an audio track. I don't think we need to make the
connection of "item haudio" to "cast" the item as an audio element.

So if you want to talk about JUST a track you can do this:
<span class="haudio">
     <span class="item">
         <span class="fn">Hokkaido Dream</span>
     </span>
</span>

it might be slightly more verbose that you want, but we can always
discuss optimization later once we have real data to work with. Lets
not throw the baby out with the bathwater. First get a working format,
then iterate for optimizations.

That would be my suggestion
-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk