{"id":1051,"date":"2013-10-29T09:59:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T16:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dubinko.info\/blog\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2013-10-29T09:59:20","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T16:59:20","slug":"skunklink-a-decade-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubinko.info\/blog\/2013\/10\/skunklink-a-decade-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Skunklink a decade later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Milowski<\/a> asks on Twitter about my thoughts on Skunklink<\/a>, now a decade old.<\/p>\n

Linking has long been thought one of the cornerstones of the web, and thereby a key part of XML and related syntaxes. It’s also been frustratingly difficult to get right. XLink in particular once showed great promise, but when it came down to concrete syntax, didn’t get very far. My thinking at the time is still well-reflected in what is, to my knowledge, the only fiction ever published on XML.com: A Hyperlink Offering<\/a>. That story ends on a hopeful note, and a decade out, I’m still hoping.<\/p>\n

For what it purports to do, Skunklink still seems like a good solution to me. It’s easy to explain. The notion of encoding the author’s intent, then letting devices work out the details, possibly with the aid of stylesheets and other such tools, is the right way to tackle this kind of a problem. Smaller specifications like SkunkLink would be a welcome breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n

But a bigger question lurks behind the scenes: that of requirements. Does the world need a vocabulary-independent linking mechanism? The empirical answer is clearly ‘no’ since existing approaches have not gained anything like widespread use, and only a few voices in the wilderness even see this as a problem. In fact, HTML5 has gone in quite the opposite direction, rejecting the notion of even a vocabulary-independent syntax, to say nothing of higher layers like intent. I have to admit this mystifies me.<\/p>\n

That said, it seems like the attribute name ‘href’ has done pretty well in representing intended hyperlinks. The name ‘src’ not quite as well. I still consider it best practice to use these names instead of making something else up.<\/p>\n

What do you think? -m<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Milowski asks on Twitter about my thoughts on Skunklink, now a decade old. Linking has long been thought one of the cornerstones of the web, and thereby a key part of XML and related syntaxes. It’s also been frustratingly difficult to get right. XLink in particular once showed great promise, but when it came…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,9,11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-browsers","category-standards","category-urls","category-xml"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t