When the W3C announced that it was retreating from XHTML2 after years in the trenches, propagandists trumpeted that advocacy of XHTML had been foolish. With HTML5 again mired in corporate politics, egotism, squabbles and petty disagreements, it is easy to see why people are questioning if using or advocating HTML5 now is foolish too? At least until all parties reach some kind of armistice.

At the moment I’m writing a script for a DVD tutorial on microformats that I will be recording for New Riders at the end of February. While designing some shiny new examples for the hCalendar event microformat, I’ve been revisiting the problems and discussions of accessibility that surround the date design pattern and thinking about possible design solutions.

Enrique Ramírez wrote to me yesterday with a few questions about Microformats and markup. I’ve been asked these questions before, a few times. So rather than send Enrique my answers on a postcard, I’m replying in public, with Enrique’s permission of course.

Peachpit Web Design Reference have published the first in a series of my articles on Microformats, Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup. In this series instead of focussing on the technical aspects that so many people have done far better, I will be combining talk of Microformats with the wider issue of the importance of writing meaningful mark-up. I’ll be finishing up each of the subsequent articles with what are hope are cool new ways to style Microformat rich mark-up using CSS.