microformats-easier-than-xml

microformats easier than xml

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From Sören Nils 'chucker' Kuklau:

• As a spec writer, you don't have to come up with wholly new XML or XML+RDF dialects.
• As an author, you don't have to learn about how to deal with XML namespaces and, generally, embedding other XML into XHTML.
• Even more importantly, you don't have to deal with the numerous quirks in XML namespace support in browsers.

All you have to do is learn to use a few more class names, which virtually every browser already supports anyway, due to their extensive use in CSS.

And because you're just using HTML/XHTML classes, you can already benefit from the way a browser treats them. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Namespaced elements would require you to come up with styling for every single element, but using (X)HTML classes lets you take advantage of the existing styling of (X)HTML elements.

See Also

• namespaces-considered-harmful
• plain-old-xml-considered-harmful
• semantic-xhtml
• semantic-class-names