This is, as others have commented, a much better explanation than the article at the top of this thread.
But I'm not sure it's quite as simple as Joel makes it seem here:
> If you work on any kind of editor—be it a blogging tool, a note-taking app, a content management system, or anything like that—you should allow your users to embed blocks that conform to the Block Protocol. This way you can write the embedding code once and immediately make your editor able to embed a rich variety of block types with no extra work on your part.
I don't see how this would work. Sure, the data would be embeddable anywhere, but how does the editor know how to display it to the user and let the user interact with it? That's not just "embedding code". And later on:
> Want to create a block that shows the Great Circle routing for a flight between two airports? Write the code for the block once and it can be embedded anywhere.
Again, how does the application it's being embedded in know how to display it to the user? That seems like it requires more than just "embedding code". Each new kind of block requires each application to add code to use the block.
I agree the data exchange interoperability part is nice, but I'm not sure about the code reduction that seems to be implied here.
But I'm not sure it's quite as simple as Joel makes it seem here:
> If you work on any kind of editor—be it a blogging tool, a note-taking app, a content management system, or anything like that—you should allow your users to embed blocks that conform to the Block Protocol. This way you can write the embedding code once and immediately make your editor able to embed a rich variety of block types with no extra work on your part.
I don't see how this would work. Sure, the data would be embeddable anywhere, but how does the editor know how to display it to the user and let the user interact with it? That's not just "embedding code". And later on:
> Want to create a block that shows the Great Circle routing for a flight between two airports? Write the code for the block once and it can be embedded anywhere.
Again, how does the application it's being embedded in know how to display it to the user? That seems like it requires more than just "embedding code". Each new kind of block requires each application to add code to use the block.
I agree the data exchange interoperability part is nice, but I'm not sure about the code reduction that seems to be implied here.