Microformats: Moving along with the evolution of the Web

How many Web sites can you point at random that has valid and proper markup? Consider the complexity that goes into producing a proper Web document (i.e., (X)(HT)ML). Microformats works quite well into the equation that it can solve a greater portion of the common problems, namely the "semantic web" using the widely adapted standards on existing documents.

We have the opportunity to boot-strap our existing data with microformats. We can use (h)GRDDL for instance to transform a microformatted (X)HTML document into RDF(a). If and when the uppercase "Semantic Web" is here (in fully functional order and with all the bells and whistles with "usable", "human friendly" applications and tools both for the publishers and end-users) then we can push our existing data forward.

In the case of natural language processing, this is still quite complex today because we are bound to the limitations of a) our knowledge on solving NP problems b) digital computing.

When quantum computing becomes available at a level where we can ask a computer for instance to give a summary of an article, we will no longer need to worry as much as we do now about the machines struggling to understand the data bits. The problem is still quite complex since machines need to be fed extra information for context. Understanding humour, sarcasm, irony, and variety of emotions to name a few is necessary for a machine to get to the real context of the information and to go beyond the literal meaning.

Microformats is not tied up to any markup (one of the goals) other then a few exceptions as far as parsing is concerned, however, that is always subject to change in light of a better way of solving a particular problem. So you can take an un-semantic markup and it can still contain microformats in which a script can retrieve those identifiable components.

Microformats also allows us to reuse a single instance of data for multiple formats. Several class-name-patterns can be combined to represent the data in different contexts

Using minimal (unique) markup forces us to write redundant or hard to scale code. Since common patterns occur, it makes sense to define templates on a granular level in order to reuse them in various places.

The whole premise of the Web and how it took off as it did is because of the fact that we made data easily accessible by humans; textual markup for the win. Microformats emphasizes only marking up visible information for humans. If it is not intended to be retrievable then it would make more sense not to make it public from the very beginning. If an email address is intended to be read (without having to look at the source code) then that email address can be optionally marked and be available for the scripts. In any case, the information is already there and can be retrieved by a fully committed script regardless of any tricks to fool email harvesters. We are able to set licensing terms (e.g., creative commons) on the data that we share; it helps the reader understand their rights with the information and what they are allowed to do with it.

Microformats is part of the natural evolution of the Web. Simply there is a need for it and the solution is reasonable enough to adapt to.