Re: Hydra Design Goals: How important is RDF?

Excellent arguments Melvin :) I could not agree more.

On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 2 October 2015 at 13:34, Asbjørn Ulsberg <asbjorn@ulsberg.no> wrote:
>>
>> 2015-10-01 11:11 GMT+02:00 Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>:
>>
>> >> As with JSON-LD, I feel the RDF part of Hydra is both
>> >> under-communicated and more of a nice-to-have than the core value of
>> >> the technologies. I think this is a good thing. While RDF and the
>> >> Semantic Web is awesome in its prospects, I highly doubt most people
>> >> getting their hands dirty with JSON-LD or Hydra will have a Semantic
>> >> Web perspective or problems related to RDF to solve.
>> >
>> > Why do you think this?
>>
>> Because RDF is an abstract and complex concept and technology with
>> annotation and syntax that requires (a lot of) training to understand
>> and decipher. That training will seem worthless when what you want to
>> do is consume some JSON from a random HTTP API.
>
>
> RDF has a reputation of being complex.  But do you actually think it is
> complex.  e.g. compared to OO programming, or C+pointers, or angular JS ...
> or name any number of technologies.  Is complexity really the issue.  Or is
> it fashion?  If RDF became the next big thing everyone wanted to learn, do
> you think there would be a barrier, technically?
>
>>
>>
>> >> Related and relevant: "JSON-LD and Why I Hate the Semantic Web"
>> >> http://manu.sporny.org/2014/json-ld-origins-2/
>> >
>> > Yet another RDF hit piece.  Do you agree with it?  Any of the points in
>> > particular?
>>
>> I don't read it as a hit piece. I read it as a very important design
>> goal when creating JSON-LD. If you put RDF front and center of any
>> technology and ignore every other "unimportant" detail like
>> serialization format, syntax and how it is possible to use and even
>> make any sense of without intimate knowledge of RDF, you essentially
>> make the technology useless for ordinary developers.
>
>
> I dont think serialization is unimportant.  I doubt anyone said that.
> Turtle is probably more readable than JSON LD, again we have the fashion
> problem, of course XML was the fashion of its day.  Where I see JSON as
> useful is that it integrates with JS without needing a parser.  I think
> people make the argument of loose coupling that RDF can have any number of
> serializations, rather than, it's not important.
>
>>
>>
>> > By the way the author of that post is using RDF now.
>>
>> Yes, I know. But that is both besides the point and incidental.
>>
>> > Prediction is a dangerous game.  The web has shown time and again that
>> > our
>> > assumptions for the future dont always match reality.  What's better is
>> > to
>> > say both Hydra and JSON LD are useful tools.  There's other useful tools
>> > such as turtle and rml ( http://rml.io/ ).  As the space becomes
>> > (hopefully)
>> > more mature, we can observe what tooling becomes popular.  We're still
>> > in
>> > the first 1% of the journey.
>>
>> I absolutely agree. Which is why I think we should make Hydra as
>> accessible to non-RDF-conniseurs as possible and not wave any
>> arguments related to simple matters like the serialization format as
>> "unimportant since they can be changed with JSON-LD and are
>> meaningless in RDF anyway".
>
>
> But is there much point in doing hydra without having a universal data model
> to map to?  Whats the value add, compared with just documenting APIs in the
> old fashioned way?
>
>>
>>
>> > RDF is a nice to have, because it has several interesting architectural
>> > properties (explained in design issues and other places).
>>
>> I completely agree! I find RDF extremely fascinating and powerful and
>> really hope everything built on top of it in the years to come to
>> change the shape of the web as we know it. I just think that RDF/XML
>> failed exactly because of "unimportant matters like serialization
>> format" and don't want the same to happen with Hydra. I think JSON-LD
>> has made the right choices in terms of readability and accessibility
>> for people unfamiliar with RDF, much due to the original design goal
>> which was described in Manu's blog post.
>
>
> So are you suggesting the mandatory serialization of the RDF used is JSON
> LD, or to underplay RDF altogether?  If JSON LD is mandatory, should other
> serializations be excluded.  Or something different.
>
>>
>>
>> > RDF could be swapped out for a similar technology, but as far as I know
>> > none exists, so let's just embrace it for now, until one exists.
>>
>> I'm not saying we should swap out RDF. I'm just saying; let's not let
>> the RDF aspects of Hydra overshadow all design decisions, causing the
>> end result to be unintelligible for people who don't know or
>> understand RDF.
>
>
> Im curious how this would work, some kind of RDF lite, or something invented
> from scratch.  I wonder if you wouldnt end up reinventing the wheel.  This
> could be an interesting proposal tho.
>
>>
>>
>> >> So: How important is RDF and the Semantic Web as a design goal for
>> >> Hydra? Should it be made more explicit?
>> >
>> > I think it's a critical component, at this point in time.  But would be
>> > open
>> > to suggestion.
>>
>> Good. I agree it's a critical component and that much of what JSON-LD
>> and Hydra does would be very hard without RDF. But should "RDF Front
>> And Center" be a design goal for Hydra, or should we have a more
>> pragmatic, layman-friendly approach and say "RDF is important, but
>> should not overshadow all other concerns even though from an RDF point
>> of view, they are irrelevant"?
>
>
> Sounds like a branding argument.  If so, you could be right, branding is
> quite hard tho.  Seems quite early to make guesses.
>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Asbjørn Ulsberg           -=|=-        asbjorn@ulsberg.no
>> «He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»
>
>

Received on Friday, 2 October 2015 23:50:31 UTC