Comments on: The Trouble With hCard and Microformats in General http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/ Web Standards, Web Culture, Web Everything.™ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:01:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Sarven Capadisli http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-40599 Sarven Capadisli Tue, 20 May 2008 07:01:39 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-40599 I've written about the microformats misconceptions and the common criticisms here: http://www.csarven.ca/microformats-misconceptions I don't believe that the whole microformats concept is faulty or useless if localisation is an issue. Keep in mind that microformats is adopting *existing* standards (e.g., vCard) for most common patterns. The root of the problem is outside of microformats and it would be great if it could be solved easily. I’ve written about the microformats misconceptions and the common criticisms here: http://www.csarven.ca/microformats-misconceptions

I don’t believe that the whole microformats concept is faulty or useless if localisation is an issue. Keep in mind that microformats is adopting *existing* standards (e.g., vCard) for most common patterns. The root of the problem is outside of microformats and it would be great if it could be solved easily.

]]> By: Ara Pehlivanian http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-39891 Ara Pehlivanian Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:13:19 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-39891 @Nathan: Yes, but you never see a "p" tag in clear text. It's under the hood. Microformats require that "tel" or "home" be in the clear. @Ian: I didn't think much about i18n either till I got hit with a scenario that required it. @Nathan: Yes, but you never see a “p” tag in clear text. It’s under the hood. Microformats require that “tel” or “home” be in the clear.

@Ian: I didn’t think much about i18n either till I got hit with a scenario that required it.

]]> By: Nathan Smith http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-39890 Nathan Smith Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:49:45 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-39890 While I'm all for internationalization, is not HTML itself a bit too English-centric? A paragraph tag, for instance, derives the "P" from the English word for paragraph. So it is with DIV, for division, etc. We have to draw the line somewhere, if only for the sake of being able to support parsers. :) While I’m all for internationalization, is not HTML itself a bit too English-centric? A paragraph tag, for instance, derives the “P” from the English word for paragraph. So it is with DIV, for division, etc. We have to draw the line somewhere, if only for the sake of being able to support parsers. :)

]]> By: Ian http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-39888 Ian Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:33:54 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-39888 Any ideas on how to do it better? I personally don't have a huge amount of experience with localization, and I have a feeling many of the people in the MicroFormats community might be in the same boat. I didn't even realize that the formats wouldn't work for other languages. I believe that the type can be any value, though I may be mistaken. In all honesty, I wouldn't mind if Microsoft embraced Microformats. It would be better than using a more proprietary format and it would give Microformats some visiblity. If MicroFomats were natively supported in IE8, or even added to IE7 through a patch, that would likely make a lot more developers take notice. Any ideas on how to do it better?

I personally don’t have a huge amount of experience with localization, and I have a feeling many of the people in the MicroFormats community might be in the same boat. I didn’t even realize that the formats wouldn’t work for other languages. I believe that the type can be any value, though I may be mistaken.

In all honesty, I wouldn’t mind if Microsoft embraced Microformats. It would be better than using a more proprietary format and it would give Microformats some visiblity. If MicroFomats were natively supported in IE8, or even added to IE7 through a patch, that would likely make a lot more developers take notice.

]]> By: Jonathan Snook http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-39885 Jonathan Snook Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:21:24 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-39885 The interesting thing here is that Microformats are less likely to receive browser endorsement if it can't support i18n. What you'll end up with is a company like Microsoft embracing and extending the format. The interesting thing here is that Microformats are less likely to receive browser endorsement if it can’t support i18n. What you’ll end up with is a company like Microsoft embracing and extending the format.

]]> By: Ian http://arapehlivanian.com/2008/04/15/the-trouble-with-hcard-and-microformats-in-general/#comment-39880 Ian Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:19:05 +0000 http://arapehlivanian.com/?p=380#comment-39880 I think the challenge comes down to the limitations of the markup. The advantage of a vCard is that it doesn't adhere to any standards other than it's own. An hCard tries to accomplish the same functionality, but is constrained to html standards. I personally think that MicroFormats are a great idea, but they don't really have enouhg adoption by vendors to make it worthwhile in many cases. Once browsers start natively recognizing and supporting MicroFormats, there will likely be some additional work put into localization and some of the other technical issues. I think the challenge comes down to the limitations of the markup. The advantage of a vCard is that it doesn’t adhere to any standards other than it’s own. An hCard tries to accomplish the same functionality, but is constrained to html standards.

I personally think that MicroFormats are a great idea, but they don’t really have enouhg adoption by vendors to make it worthwhile in many cases. Once browsers start natively recognizing and supporting MicroFormats, there will likely be some additional work put into localization and some of the other technical issues.

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