There are a few groups working at W3C with things which relate to the notion of localization. Localization is hard. It is deeply ingrained in our philosophical view of the world. We name spaces and give them meanings in many ways.
What about the Web developers using javascript for dealing with addresses. We need your help. The Device API Working Group is working on a Contact API for exchanging in an interoperable way addressbooks. For example, synchronization in between your different devices. The document is in last call and the API for addresses is ContactAddress (Last Call).
interface ContactAddress {
attribute boolean pref;
attribute DOMString? type;
attribute DOMString? formatted;
attribute DOMString? streetAddress;
attribute DOMString? locality;
attribute DOMString? region;
attribute DOMString? postalCode;
attribute DOMString? country;
};
The Contact API is implemented for example by PhoneGap.
On the other hand, there is the Geolocation Working Group which is working on the future of the geolocation API: Geolocation API 2 (Editor's Draft). In this one there is another API for the Address information.
interface Address {
readonly attribute DOMString country;
readonly attribute DOMString region;
readonly attribute DOMString county;
readonly attribute DOMString city;
readonly attribute DOMString street;
readonly attribute DOMString streetNumber;
readonly attribute DOMString premises;
readonly attribute DOMString additionalInformation;
readonly attribute DOMString postalCode;
};
You may notice that there are very similar but different. Do you think it will be an issue when developing Web applications. Would you prefer the same API, or one being the specialization of the other? Or two are completely fine.