On 2/6/13 1:38 PM, Colin wrote:
Hi Kingsley,Thanks for saving my contribution from the oblivion!When I said "zero usability", I referred to reading Turtle, not writing. I think Turtle is great for hand writing as you explain, and that we just miss some ways to insert existing entities more easily and prevent typos.For reading, it is by far better than JSon, RDF/XML and Ntriples, but I don't think it is satisfactory.
That's why I say RDF based Linked Data is "horses for courses" compliant :-) Each RDF syntax notation best serves a specific user profile. We only get into trouble when we try to force an inappropriate syntax notation upon the wrong user profile.
I read previously that you consider that "non programmer" people should learn how to read Turtle, and I agree, though I don't think people will be happy to leave the colorful and groovy UIs they have been used to. That's matter for debate.
They will actually appreciate the value of triple curation UI's once they understand the basics. Our problem in the past is that we skipped this vital first step (myself included).
"Lost me on that one."With my contribution I tried to explore format by format the different combinations between human/machine and reading/writing". Coming to the machine/writing/Turtle combination, I couldn't think of a situation where it would make sense.
If the output is to be read and easily understood by a human :-) Kingsley
Best regards, ColinOn Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:18 PM, Kingsley Idehen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 2/6/13 1:08 PM, Colin wrote:Hi all, Fascinating thread, all arguments being quite valid and it seems it all depends on what you want to achieve with Linked data. I was about to write a lengthy text to explain my view, but I'll start with a table to save time and improve readibility: *You are..* *Human* *Machine* *You want to…* *Write data* Turtle RDF/XML, JSon, Ntriples *Read data* HTML , /Turtle/ RDF/XML, JSon, Turtle, Ntriples *Turtle*: like Kingsley pointed many times, it's easy write at hand. Like Richard pointed, users should use a decent editor, with syntax checking, possibilities to import objects, classes, properties etc.. easily, maybe a preview feature that would show a graphical view of the written graph. However, if reading Turtle is possible, I don't think it's what users would like in the end. With a plain Turtle file you get the meaning, but zero usability.You get maximum usability via the most simple of patterns i.e., the following steps: 1. Create a file 2. Add Turtle content 3. Save the file 4. Share the file. 1-4 are vital. You don't need any syntax highlighters for that. For instance, do you need an kind of aid from any editor to express: This is a Document. This Document was created today. It was created by me. I am a Person. etc.. Basically simple sentences that flow from your conventional intuition all the way over the digital realm of the Web. The sad story here is that nature of Data has been compromised by the overbearing nature of software, in general. The Web is a massive jigsaw puzzle game where every puzzle piece is a Web resource. Thus, we need to have a mechanism (one that superior to HTML) for rapidly producing and sharing data, information, and knowledge.With so much interlinked data you want to browse, not to get Turtle files one by one by manually concatenating the . It's like comparing the RFC text files (example <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5646.txt>) with the W3C recommandation pages (example <http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/>), full of links, or something even more powerful, something like Graphity (my company's data portal <http://data.nxp.com>).No, that's not the case. Again, its about puzzle pieces. Each Web user contributes there little pieces to the bigger puzzle.I can't think of a situation where a machine would write Turtle.Lost me on that one.*RDF/XML*: Not readable by humans. Since XML is quite common to store data, the easiest way to product RDF from XML is to serialize RDF/XML. As pointed earlier, it's so easy that some people produce millions of rubbish triples. But don't blame the tool, crappy data was in MySQL DBs, in XML, and will be in RDF too. Instead of banning or advising against using it, it would be more productive to bring a light on the pitfalls, the most common mistakes that a XML developer would make when producing RDF. *JSON*: Not readable by humans. I'm not very familiar with Javascript development. However I know enough to know that providing a JS developer with JSon is a treat, certainly for reading, probably for writing too.Yes, and that's the issue, JSON is good for you, but the Web is for everyone (programmers and none programmers) :-) KingsleyBest regards, and retro-thanks for all the previous threads! Colin Maudry @colinmaudry Product Data Analyst NXP Semiconductors On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Kingsley Idehen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On 2/6/13 10:00 AM, Richard Light wrote: One issue that Turtle will need to address (it may do so already) is software support for free-hand data entry. While the format is seductively simple-looking (well, it is to the likes of us who grew up on XML/SGML*) it is very easy to make mistakes. I followed Kingsley's reference to his file space (see his separate reply) and grabbed the file jordan.ttl. Now, you really have to put my directory listing example in context. This isn't about perfect data (such doesn't exist) it is all about the ability to create and share data. FWIW -- of all the files to pick, you picked the one created by my 12 year old son :-) It contains variations in spelling which will mean that some predicate - subject links will fail (e.g. New England Patriots), as will one sameAs link (USA). Yes, he is a Pats fan, so I used that to pique his interest en route to teaching him Turtle. There is (I guess) an intended link from USA to N. America, but again this won't fly because USA's continent property is expressed as a string. If case matters, most of the sameAs references won't work. The properties (predicates) are all local to the document and none of them is defined. Integer values are typed as strings. Two of the dates are wrong (e.g. Sept 31 783). This is not to criticise Kingsley's typing, but rather to point out that if you are encouraging users to hand-type resources which are to be interpreted as data, then they are going to need some software support if they are not going to be mightily let down by the whole process. It's a bit like authoring web pages: it doesn't go too badly if you're working in a rich edit box and don't have to add HTML markup yourself. As I said, you somehow you stumbled across the Turtle doc produced by a 12 year old. That file was all about getting him going and then showing him the implications of his mistakes etc.. My other Turtle tutorials include sample links to profiles documents, stuff I like etc. Richard--Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder & CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen <http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen--Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder & CEO OpenLink Software Company Web:http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog:http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen <http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile:https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile:http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
-- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder & CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
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