Article:		What Are Microformats
Subject:		XHTML 2 as the 'Universal Document' ... and the 'Universal Form'
Date:		2005-03-24 03:47:23
From:		mark.birbeck@x-port.net
Hey Micah, Great article! I looked at some related issues in my blog a few months ago. The basic idea proposed was that XHTML 2 will increasingly become a common 'base class' for documents containing certain types of data, but that the 'extensions' would be provided by the changes to meta and link that the XHTML 2 specification gives us. There are a couple of reasons I like this approach. The first is that it means you can validate your documents without having to keep creating new schemas. The second is that it allows for different data types to be mixed without enforcing some sort of separation -- I like the fact that it is pretty easy in the same document to mix contact info with calendar entries, and even exam results! And third, making XHTML 2 both a data format *and* a UI format means that your pages become both the data *and* the metadata -- for example, your home page can be your RSS feed, without changing. But one of the goals of all of this, as mentioned in the blog, was to make building the UI that edits these documents much easier; in the old days the moment you started a new project you had to come up with a new data format. Nowadays, although you generally use XML instead, the equivalent is that you immediately have to come up with a new UI to edit the data. Most of the time the forms differ only in the names on the controls or the help and hint text. By making more and more use of XHTML 2 as a data format, we can start to create UIs as *patterns*. And then the form that edits the slide-show can also edit the list of RSS feeds, list of contacts, list of appointments, and so on. All the best, Mark Mark Birbeck CEO, x-port.net Ltd. http://www.formsPlayer.com/

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• Are these really benefits?
  2006-06-25 18:37:51 Logomachist [Reply]
  
  I like the idea of microformats, the idea that programs can be equipped to handle certain metadata in specific ways, and the ability to mix simple data types within documents, but I have to wonder if some of the points you mentioned are really that beneficial.

  
  <blockquote>
  The first is that it means you can validate your documents without having to keep creating new schemas.
  </blockquote>

  
  If the document schema is loose and doesn't fit the information you're denoting, doesn't that defeat the purpose of validation?

  
  
  <blockquote>
  And third, making XHTML 2 both a data format *and* a UI format means that your pages become both the data *and* the metadata -- for example, your home page can be your RSS feed, without changing.
  </blockquote>

  
  Isn't this the same as saying it mixes content and presentation, and therefore is a big no-no? Wasn't HTML designed from the start to delinate a documents structure, not presentation? That's what we have styling languages for, and they work as well for XML as they do for (x)HTML.

  
  <blockquote>
  Nowadays, although you generally use XML instead, the equivalent is that you immediately have to come up with a new UI to edit the data.
  </blockquote>

  
  I don't see much benefit here. CSS is (relatively) easy.