Semantics/Profiles/Namespaces/Modules Re: XHTML <time> element proposal

Le Jeudi, 30 octo 2003, à 04:00 America/Montreal, Tantek Çelik a écrit :
> The purpose is simple semantics.
>
> <time> is more semantic than <span class="time">

not exactly. More interoperable semantics :)
The creation of an element leads to a common usage of an element.

Though it has its own internationalization problems. :))) In the sense 
that all the markup languages are english-centric.
 <time> but why not <temps> or <tempus> or <时间>

a <span class="time"></span> could have a lot of semantics as well if 
there was clearly defined profiles attributes by the HTML WG and IMHO 
it would be easier to move forward the spec.

 Imagine you have
  - profile for time (day, month, etc),
  - profile for citations (author, title, etc)
  - etc

Same problems of internationalization except if you create something 
which is IDL and where you have language bindings.

In HTML 4.01, you had an attribute called “profile”, unfortunately the 
format of the profile has never been clearly defined. But it was 
something on the form of

 <head profile="http://www.example.org/profile/something">

it was even possible to have.

 <head profile="http://www.example.org/profile/something"
       http://www.example.org/profile/another
           http://www.example.org/profile/yetanother">

The HTML WG could decide to define one or more generic profiles 
defining the semantics of the attributes AND at the same define the 
format of profiles file...

And you could make it mandatory by assigning a set of profiles, in fact 
what you call a PROFILE in CSS ;), to have a conformant implementation.

This can be achieved by

 Profiles of attributes
 Modules of elements
 Modules of attributes
 namespaces

 The profile defining what has to be implemented by the products to be 
conformant.

After it's more a matter of choosing an architecture and a simple 
solution both for the implementers (viewers AND authoring tools) and 
users.



>> Better keep the markup simple.
>
> Data comes before metadata.

data are metadata themselves ;)

> Data markup is also simpler than metadata markup.

nope. :) it's because you think about something else ;) You are not 
thinking about metadata but about certain ways of marking up metadata, 
which is different.

> Yes.  It *is* better to keep the markup simple.

As long as the simplicity doesn't harm the power, I completely agree.



-- 
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager
*** Be Strict To Be Cool ***

Received on Thursday, 30 October 2003 19:07:52 UTC