[microformats-discuss] Re: Educationg Others

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Scott,

On Oct 4, 2005, at 2:26 PM, Scott Anderson wrote:
> On 10/3/05, Ryan King <ryan at technorati.com> wrote:
>>> How long did it take Brian to write, test, and debug the XSL that
>>> reads the format?
>>>
>>> http://suda.co.uk/projects/X2V/xhtml2vcal.xsl
>>
>> Work in progress.
>
> I think you should be listening to Brian for ideas on making this task
> easier. I think this will turn out to be a much bigger project than
> anyone thinks. To get to a reasonable usable API might require a
> pretty robust and evolved XSL framework.

You make some valid points, but I think its helpful to set some  
context and expectations.

I get the feeling that microformats does *not* map cleanly onto your  
desired usage model.   Yes, clearly microformats *do* need to become  
more robust, better documented, and more explicitly specified.    
However, I'm getting a sense that you're saying:

"Microformats as they are now are pretty useless for my purposes, so  
please make them more like a rigorous XML schema."

Is that the message you intend to convey?   While that's certainly a  
valid point of view (and we have something to learn from that), I get  
the feeling that you don't quite (yet) understand the 'zen' of  
microformats, or why those issues which appear central to you are in  
fact quite peripheral to the main attraction of microformats.

I'm not saying that's your fault -- we as a community have a long way  
to go in terms of articulating things more clearly, despite Tantek's  
heroic work to date.  However, I suspect that there's a major  
difference between what you want and where the community is, and  
trying to 'force-fit' the two -- at least right now -- could lead to  
mutual frustration.

I'd love to be proved wrong, but I also wanted to sound a cautionary  
note lest these misunderstandings get out of hand.

Best regards,
- Ernie P.