At Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:12:56 -0600, Lee Passey wrote: > > On 6/8/2010 8:23 PM, Erik Hetzner wrote: > > [snip] > > > In my opinion, RDF is more constraining than XML, because it forces > > the designer to think clearly about the underlying model, rather than > > presenting a lot of different metadata fields. > > Then I will leave it to you to explain to the W3C how the RDF > specification failed to meet the design goal of "represent[ing] > information in a minimally constraining, flexible way."
I’ll see what I can do. :) > […] > > And if the graph doesn't have a schema I understand, I'm hosed; thus the > value of constraints. If I know OL will always represent a person as > foaf:person, then I can code for that. But if OL sometimes represents a > person as foaf:person, and sometimes as dcterms:agent, and sometimes as > rdg2:person, and sometimes as rdf:description and sometimes using some > new vocabulary that has not yet been invented that a human being could > recognize as conveying "personness" but not a computer algorithm, then I > don't know how to deal with that. Of course I can ignore what I don't > understand, but what happens if there is nothing left when I do? I agree that in order to use the data, one needs to be able to understand the vocabulary that is used. > > The more > > the merrier. If OL outputs FOAF& RDA,& it conforms to the semantics > > of both, great. If I know what FOAF is, I can use that, but if I only > > understand RDA, I can use that instead, and not worry about the > > differences between the semantics of RDF& FOAF, because OL has done > > that for me. > > Surely you're not suggesting that OL create RDF records that contain > every possible representation of its data in every possible vocabulary... Sure, if they can do it. Why not? > > I really don’t see the problem. A graph can be trimmed > > wherever you like. > > The problem is never a surfeit of data, it is always a paucity thereof. Agreed, which is why I said above that the more vocabularies supported, the better, all other things being equal. > > For the record, XSLT is not very useful for dealing with RDF+XML, > > unless one constrains (!) the syntax of RDF+XML. > > Precisely my point. Thus, OL should constrain its RDF/XML syntax to a > limited vocabulary, and rely on XSLT to generate unconstrained > vocabularies as needed, as the reverse is not possible. In setting those > limits, it should start by trying to determine which vocabulary(ies) are > most useful to its consumers and potential consumers. This is, so far, > the issue that no one has addressed directly. Processing RDF+XML with XSLT is not made easier by constraining the RDF vocabularies used, but by constraining the syntax of RDF+XML. See, e.g., the RSS 1.0 spec. best, Erik
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