On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:51:57 +0100, Mark Birbeck
<mark.birb...@webbackplane.com> wrote:
Hi Ivan,
[...]
However: if we work on a generic XML+RDFa, we essentially have two
possibilities:
1. we define some sort of a generic mechanism whereby an XML application
language (and maybe even the user!) can define his/her own set of
keywords. This should be compatible with what we have in XHTML+RDFa and
it is then up to the SVG group to decide whether they want to use it or
not
2. we scrap the whole mechanism of keywords except for XHTML for
backward compatibility reasons.
I must admit I tempted to go for #2; the only reason we kept the keyword
mechanism in RDFa was for historical reasons only, and I do not see why
this mechanism would have any particular value for other XML dialects
where history is not a factor...
[...]
I favour #1. :)
In chatting with Ivan, I favour something like:
take the applicable namespace
append "/vocab#"
use that as the missing prefix.
Steven
In my view, having short 'tokens' for URIs is the Holy Grail...if we
can get to this point, then RDFa will essentially become an amalgam of
Microformats' ease of use, HTML's ease of deployment, and RDF's
scaleable and decentralised nature.
I discussed some of the advantages of 'tokenising the semantic web' in
a blog post, a while back. Forgive me for quoting myself, but the key
idea is in the middle of the document:
Whilst it's obviously true that having unqualified values like 'fn'
and 'url' make
it difficult to bring Microformats into the semantic web, we should be
careful
not to throw the baby out with the bathwater; what may be a weakness in
terms of scalability, is a strength when it comes to authoring
documents.
Authors need only use simple values in their documents, without having
to
get involved with XML namespaces or other forms of prefix mappings.
Of course, at some point our dumb machines still need to know how to
map
the token, but it's a lot better to get the machines to do the work,
and allow
authors the freedom of using simple tokens. [1]
My feeling is that we're getting closer to being able to find a
solution to this second step of the problem.
Regards,
Mark
[1]
<http://webbackplane.com/mark-birbeck/blog/2009/04/30/tokenising-the-semantic-web>
--
Mark Birbeck, webBackplane
mark.birb...@webbackplane.com
http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
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