[uf-discuss] microformats are Sugar? SALT!

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Ryan & Chris,

On Nov 24, 2005, at 11:15 PM, Ryan King wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2005, at 2:19 PM, Chris Messina wrote:
>> Microformats are for general purpose use, like flour and sugar. Using
>> them you can build things as interesting as pizza or as simple as
>> bread. However, a microformat for pizza would probably be
>> inappropriate or not worth standardizing since its fundamental
>> ingredients can be broken down further into more atomic units.
>
> Chris, you've made an interesting analogy. Please indulge me as I  
> expand on it (beware, I'm still recovering from my thanksgiving-day  
> food coma)...

In my own tryptophan-induced semi-conscious state, I have to weigh  
(ouch) in on this...

> First, microformats = sugar

<rant>

Microformats are salt, not sugar!

Like salt, microformats are designed to bring out what is already  
there.  Hence the term 'semantic salt', which -surfaces- the latent  
structure in HTML; by contrast with 'syntactic sugar', which tries to  
-hide- ugly details.

</rant>

-- Ernie P.

P.S. Yeah, I know Ryan was making a completely different point, but I  
couldn't pass up the chance to preach from my favorite soapbox...

> Mmmm, food.

Dang, now you've gone and made me hungry.   Not like I needed any  
more food after last week....