[uf-discuss] Microformats versus Microdata
Martin Leese
I have decided to add microformats to my
HTML 4.01 website. I have added hCard as
this seems to be well supported, and am now
looking at also adding hAudio/hMedia and
hResume. These, however, are all still draft
standards, and are not as well supported as
hCard. This presents me with a problem.
Do I implement these draft microformats, or
wait until I upgrade my website to HTML 5, and
then deploy Microdata? (I will not be
upgrading to HTML 5 until the standard is
ratified, and that looks to be a few years away
yet. If I add Microdata to HTML 4.01 then the
HTML will not verify, so I will not do that.)
It is already clear that Microdata will be well
supported. On the other hand, my impression
of microformats is that the draft standards are
moribund. Is this a fair impression?
Many thanks,
Martin
--
Martin J Leese
E-mail: martin.leese stanfordalumni.org
Web: http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/
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Micky Hulse
<martin...@stanfordalumni.org> wrote:
> It is already clear that Microdata will be well
> supported. On the other hand, my impression
> of microformats is that the draft standards are
> moribund. Is this a fair impression?
Good questions!
I did not even realize that there was a microdata format until I read
your e-mail.
I wonder if you could just change your HTML DTD to an HTML5 and go from there?
In other words, change this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
... to this:
<!doctype html>
<html>
From what I know, most HTML4 strict elements should work just fine
under HTML5. You don't need to worry about changing all the tags to
<section> or <header> (for example)... You could do that later, but in
the meantime you could start working with the microdata formats on
specific elements.
Anyway, just a thought. :)
Great questions!
Cheers,
M
Mathias Panzenböck
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99170
Stephen Paul Weber
Hash: SHA256
Somebody claiming to be Martin Leese wrote:
>hResume. These, however, are all still draft
>standards, and are not as well supported as
>hCard. This presents me with a problem.
draft vs not-a-draft shouldn't hinder your implementation :)
As far as microdata, that's sort of a seperate thing. Microdata is in flux
and there are no community-driven vocabularies or formats for it (there are
some WHATWG-driven and Google-driven formats, but that's hardly a community
consensus).
- --
Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma
See <http://singpolyma.net> for how I prefer to be contacted
edition right joseph
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Micky Hulse
<singp...@singpolyma.net> wrote:
> As far as microdata, that's sort of a seperate thing. Microdata is in flux
> and there are no community-driven vocabularies or formats for it (there are
> some WHATWG-driven and Google-driven formats, but that's hardly a community
> consensus).
Interesting.
This seems pretty official:
But, like you say, it's hardly a community consensus. :(
Purely from a readability perspective, I like that microdata is not
using CSS classes; on the other hand, I'm not keen about pointing
towards a schema (itemtype=) for every little piece of content on my
page. Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to both
techniques.
Micky Hulse
> <http://www.schema.org/>
I thought this was interesting:
[[
Q: Why microdata? Why not RDFa or microformats?
Focusing on microdata was a pragmatic decision. Supporting multiple
syntaxes makes documentation for webmasters more complex and
introduces more overhead in terms of defining new formats.
Microformats are concise and easy to understand, but they don't offer
an open extensibility mechanism and the reuse of the class tag can
cause conflicts with website CSS. RDFa is extensible and very
expressive, but the substantial complexity of the language has
contributed to slower adoption. Microdata is the most recent
well-known standard, created along with HTML5. It strikes a balance
between extensibility and simplicity, and is most suitable for
building the schema.org. Google and Yahoo! have in the past supported
both microformats and RDFa for certain schemas and will continue to
support these syntaxes for those schemas. We will also be monitoring
the web for RDFa and microformats adoption and if they pick up, we
will look into supporting these syntaxes. Also read the section on the
data model for more on RDFa.
]]
-- <http://schema.org/docs/faq.html>
Stephen Paul Weber
Hash: SHA256
>Purely from a readability perspective, I like that microdata is not
>using CSS classes
CSS. You can style classes with CSS because you can style *many* selectors
(ids, tag names, and any other attributes) with CSS. The class attribute
has no more to do with CSS than the tag name or the id or anything else.
HTML classes provide a mechanism for extending the semantics of the
document, which many microformats make use of (along with other useful HTML
semantics such as the href attribute of <a> tags, etc).
- --
Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma
See <http://singpolyma.net> for how I prefer to be contacted
edition right joseph
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Micky Hulse
On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Stephen Paul Weber
<singp...@singpolyma.net> wrote:
> Somebody claiming to be Micky Hulse wrote:
>>Purely from a readability perspective, I like that microdata is not
>>using CSS classes
>
> Ah, that's a common misconception. HTML classes have nothing to do with
> CSS. You can style classes with CSS because you can style *many* selectors
> (ids, tag names, and any other attributes) with CSS. The class attribute
> has no more to do with CSS than the tag name or the id or anything else.
> HTML classes provide a mechanism for extending the semantics of the
> document, which many microformats make use of (along with other useful HTML
> semantics such as the href attribute of <a> tags, etc).
Thanks for the clarification, I really appreciate it.
I should have clarified... I don't mind that microformats use CSS
classes, I just think my HTML looks a tad more readable when using
microdata. For example:
<https://gist.github.com/2898578>
(Sorry that the HTML is different)
Maybe that's not the best example, but my gut feeling is that I prefer
the microdata because it's not using the class attributes. Of course,
my opinion is based on personal preference. For example:
<div class="sig vcard">
vs.
<div class="sig" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
Clearly the microdata is more markup, but I like that the "data
format" has bee separated from the class attribute.
Going back to the microdata FAQ:
"...reuse of the class tag can cause conflicts with website CSS."
I think they make a good point there.
...
I've read about microformats on/off for years now (I even bought the
Microformat book when it first came out), and I am new to microdata
(just digging my teeth into it now)... I'm keeping an open mind, but
there's something in my gut that wants to go with microdata over
microformats.
On the other hand, who's to say one can't use both? Right?
O.K., crawling back into my hole now. Sorry if I hijacked this thread. :(
Thanks again Stephen!
Cheers!
Micky
Martin Leese
> On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Stephen Paul Weber wrote:
>> As far as microdata, that's sort of a seperate thing. ?Microdata is in flux
>> some WHATWG-driven and Google-driven formats, but that's hardly a
>> community consensus).
>
> Interesting.
>
> This seems pretty official:
> <http://www.schema.org/>
>
> But, like you say, it's hardly a community consensus. :(
>
> towards a schema (itemtype=) for every little piece of content on my
> page. Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to both
> techniques.
W3C, visit:
http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/
This means that, in the long term, Microdata
will win in the marketplace and microformats
will lose. My problem is what to do in the short
and medium terms.
While it will be possible to deploy both, this
would be twice the work for zero additional
benefit.
Regards,
--
Martin J Leese
E-mail: martin.leese stanfordalumni.org
Web: http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/
Stephen Paul Weber
Hash: SHA256
>On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Stephen Paul Weber
><singp...@singpolyma.net> wrote:
>> Somebody claiming to be Micky Hulse wrote:
>I should have clarified... I don't mind that microformats use CSS
>classes
classes", only "HTML classes". :P
>I just think my HTML looks a tad more readable when using
>microdata. For example:
>
><https://gist.github.com/2898578>
>
>(Sorry that the HTML is different)
basically the same to me, except that the microdata-based on uses a URI for
a part of its vocabulary.
>Maybe that's not the best example, but my gut feeling is that I prefer
>the microdata because it's not using the class attributes. Of course,
>my opinion is based on personal preference. For example:
>
><div class="sig vcard">
>
>vs.
>
><div class="sig" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
>
>Clearly the microdata is more markup, but I like that the "data
>format" has bee separated from the class attribute.
element matches. The fact that people happen to style classes with CSS is
sort of irrelevant: if I used microdata I would style microdata attributes
using CSS as well.
>Going back to the microdata FAQ:
>
>"...reuse of the class tag can cause conflicts with website CSS."
>
>I think they make a good point there.
anything other than classes. Like I said above: I would use CSS on
itemprop/itemtype as well, in which case their use affects my styles as
well.
>(I even bought the
>Microformat book when it first came out)
>On the other hand, who's to say one can't use both? Right?
So, in the end it's your own choice, I'll just outline breifly why I prefer
microformats:
* Re-using existing HTML semantics (class, <a>, <img>, rel, etc) instead of
inventing something new.
* Community consensus on vocabularies based on previously-established
formats (vCard, ATOM, etc). Not that microdata couldn't use good
vocabularies, since it's just a syntax, but currently the popular
vocabularies come out of WHATWG/Google and not the community.
* Long-standing standards with existing widely-deployed implementations
YMMV
- --
Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma
See <http://singpolyma.net> for how I prefer to be contacted
edition right joseph
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Micky Hulse
On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Stephen Paul Weber
<singp...@singpolyma.net> wrote:
> Sorry, just going to point out again (pet peeve of mine), there are no "CSS
> classes", only "HTML classes". :P
Doh! Sorry, I did not catch that the first time. :(
My tendency is to say CSS classes when referring to the values of the
"class" attribute of an html tag; I think that's why I call it a class
- I am referring to the value(s) of the HTML class attribute. Lol,
sorry for my ignorance if I used the wrong term(s).
> The class attribute is itself a "data format", encoding types that the
> element matches. The fact that people happen to style classes with CSS is
> sort of irrelevant: if I used microdata I would style microdata attributes
> using CSS as well.
I hear what you are saying and that's a good observation.
I think we're talking about two different things here. :D
I agree and understand everything you have said.
With that said, I don't think that there's anything wrong with me not
liking the fact that microformats use HTML classes. For me, simply
put, it's more about clutter and readability. Based on my few tests
within the last couple days, microdata just seems more clean.
Again, what the heck do I know... I'm open minded... I think I need to
spend some more time playing with the two formats. :)
>>Going back to the microdata FAQ:
>>"...reuse of the class tag can cause conflicts with website CSS."
>>I think they make a good point there.
>
> Only if you somehow (a) can't change your CSS and (b) never style with
> anything other than classes. Like I said above: I would use CSS on
> itemprop/itemtype as well, in which case their use affects my styles as
> well.
Interesting! I don't think I would style itemprop/itemtype... I guess
I'm oldschool like that. :D
About not being able to change your CSS: I think it depends on the
situation/context. At my current job, I work with around 20 third
party companies where my CSS and HTML templates are hosted on their
servers and mixed-in with their CSS and HTML; based on my experience,
it's best for me to namespace my CSS classes to avoid style conflicts.
With 100% of these third party companies, there's always some amount
of their CSS that I can't touch.
>>(I even bought the
>>Microformat book when it first came out)
> There's a book? That's weird...
I know, right! :D
"Microformats: the book"
<http://microformats.org/2007/04/19/microformats-the-book>
>>On the other hand, who's to say one can't use both? Right?
> Sure, you can definitely use both.
> So, in the end it's your own choice, I'll just outline breifly why I prefer
> microformats:
Those are very good reasons to use microformats. I'm going to let this
all sink in and experiment with both.
Thanks so much for your pro tips and advice Stephen, I really appreciate it.
Also, sorry to the original poster for my hijacking of the thread. :(
Have a nice day all!
Cheers,
Micky