Re:Using jQuery’s Data APIs
by statictype on Friday September 02, 2011 @08:31PM
(#2956102)
Why not just add arbitrary attributes to HTML nodes (before the data- attributes were standardized)?
Is there some reason not to do that besides 'it would fail a validator test'?
The attributes you decide to use now may wind up in the HTML spec some day. If that were to happen, your site may break.
...I hear that a bit when this question comes up. Personally, I think the site would be due for an update by then anyway.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to use an attribute for storage, but this is good info. I for one love data-* attributes. It's better than the days of trying to pack info into the id or rel attributes.