You clearly know the answer to your own question, but you don't think it's important. I'd ask you to take a step back and have a look at what I'm saying. I'm saying that I understand why pg has set his priorities as he has. All I'm suggesting is that we be honest about it. Let's not say it "doesn't matter".
Currently, aggregator projects work with HN because they know and understand the HN markup specifically. In an ideal world (and one in which we don't live, obviously), a "scraper" library should be able to identify things like comment streams based on contextual information. Think of the power that comes just from having indexes that are able to identify the title and content body. Now, what if we take that a step further and build an indexer that can recognize comments. One that can infer that one comment is made in reference to another based on its nested hierarchy. Are tables the right structure for that?
I'm asking you to dream. I'm asking you not to be complacent with the tools that "work" today. That's all. If you're content to use what you've got, and you don't care if we ever end up with markup that enables these powerful new ways of relating to data, fine, but don't say it doesn't matter. It matters.
Currently, aggregator projects work with HN because they know and understand the HN markup specifically. In an ideal world (and one in which we don't live, obviously), a "scraper" library should be able to identify things like comment streams based on contextual information. Think of the power that comes just from having indexes that are able to identify the title and content body. Now, what if we take that a step further and build an indexer that can recognize comments. One that can infer that one comment is made in reference to another based on its nested hierarchy. Are tables the right structure for that?
I'm asking you to dream. I'm asking you not to be complacent with the tools that "work" today. That's all. If you're content to use what you've got, and you don't care if we ever end up with markup that enables these powerful new ways of relating to data, fine, but don't say it doesn't matter. It matters.