[microformats-discuss] Microformats, REST, and XML

Mon Sep 19 12:26:36 PDT 2005

On Sep 19, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Kevin Marks wrote:
> Another angle on the discussions regarding XML vs XHTML, and 
> touching on REST, is the context of use.
>> If you are using XML to pass data around between your own 
> applications and never touching the web, then the extra degree of 
> control gained by constructing your own arbitrary data structure in 
> XML may be worth it.
>> If however, you are intending to send the data over a webserver, 
> using a REST API, then using microformats in XHTML (and in 
> particular XOXO) has many benefits:

Fascinating. This is one of the things I've wondered about. In a 
world where everybody "grokked" microformats, would there ever be a 
need for new (public) XML documents? Or could we do everything with 
microformatted XHTML -- and, perhaps, Atom. Certainly, I would think 
things like DocBook would make far more sense as a XHTML application 
rather than their own XML schema.
This is more than a theoretical question. As you know, Mac OS X 
uses property lists (the moral equivalent of XOXO, at least to first 
order) for many types of data transport. There's often discussion 
about when/where an app should simply use a plist dictionary for data 
storage vs. defining a custom XML document type.
What would this list recommend as the best practice (assuming plist = 
XOXO for purpose of discussion)?
-- Ernie P.