Richard,
I don't know, Sam...
I mean, we're not forcing someone to use these patterns. But let's
face it, they're patterns because lots of people use them.
exactly. These patterns exist already. Its not about saying "you
should do these things in this way" rather "over time, when solving
this kind of problem, the following conventions have emerged"
For example:
previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 next
look familiar?
Google and almost every multi-page set of results uses this. I'd
call it a convention. We're using the word 'pattern'.
very nice example - there are actually two patterns here - a
"navigation strategy" (how to allow users to conceive of and move
around a set of information) and apage architecture pattern, how to
present that strategy to the users. There might even be an
interaction pattern lurking in there too if you look closely enough.
What's the best way to mark this up?
Well, I'd hazard a quess that this was an ordered list.
But then there's those two at the beginning and end....
How are they best semantically marked up?
And what CSS is best used to effectively display them?
at this point, we get into suggested solutions. There is often going
to be more than one common solution, (note again this is about
capturing current practice, rather than dictating the "one true
way"). The pattern captures these solutions, and discusses the pros
and cons of using them. The developer still needs to make a choice in
the context of their project, and then implement the pattern.
What I'm saying is that instead of:
a. trying to figure it out for yourself (which at the VERY best is
time consuming), or
b. Cut'n'pasting someone else's dodgey table-based code....
... you could go to this site and, knowing that this is the Best
Practice method, use that bit of code.
I'd just pluralize Best Practices, and I think you've got agreat
example here
Hang on! Oh yeah, the standards community has already started doing
something like this with hCard via MicroFormats, right?
Thing is, I think the idea could be applied to more patterns.
Yes, microformats are certainly patterns - what I term (for now) data
patterns, by and large. WebPatterns are more general than µf, in part
because the µf crew have specifically decided to focus on one aspect
of patterns, at least for now.
You never know, it might end continually re-occurring debates on
mailing lists (like those I mentioned in my first post).
or at least move them to a wiki :-)
Thanks for the great ideas
j
John Allsopp
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