Microdata and RDFa Living Together in Harmony by Jeni Tennison.
From the post:
One of the options that the TAG put forward when it asked the W3C to put together task force on embedded data in HTML was the co-existence of RDFa and microdata. If that’s what we’re headed for, what might make things easier for consumers and publishers who have to live in that world?
In a situation where there are two competing standards, I think that developers — both on the publication and consumption sides — are going to want to hedge their bets. They will want to avoid being tied to one syntax in case it turns out that that syntax isn’t supported by the majority of publishers/consumers in the long term and they have to switch.
Publishers like us at legislation.gov.uk who are aiming to share their data to whoever is interested in it (rather than having a particular consumer in mind) are also likely to want to publish in both microdata and RDFa, rather than force potential consumers to adopt a particular processing model, and will therefore need to mix the syntaxes within their pages.
Interesting and detailed analysis of the issues of reconciling microdata and RDFa.
Jeni asks if this type of analysis is worthy of something more official than a blog post.
I would say yes. I think this sort of mapping analysis should be published along with any competing format.
You would not frequent a software project that lacks version control.
Why use a data format/annotation that doesn’t provide a mapping to “competing” formats? (The emphasis being on “competing” formats. Not mappings to any possible format but to those in direct competition with the proposed format/annotation system.)
I have no objection to new formats but if there is an existing format, document its shortcomings and a mapping to the new format, along with where the mapping fails.
Doesn’t save us from competing formats but it may ease the evaluation and/or co-existence of formats.
From a topic map perspective, such a mapping is just more grist for the mill.