[Fwd: RE: The syntax issue]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: RE: The syntax issue
From:    "Orri Erling" <erling@xs4all.nl>
Date:    Thu, August 26, 2010 5:30 pm
To:      "'Harry Halpin'" <hhalpin@w3.org>
         "'Souri Das'" <Souripriya.Das@oracle.com>
Cc:      "'RDB2RDF WG'" <public-rdb2rdf-wg@w3.org>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



All


For human authorship, it should be neither XML nor RDF since both are as
good as unwritable by humans.  But since we are talking about language, with
a tree--like structure in the sense of parse tree, XML is better.  RDF with
blank nodes for representing trees is an order of magnitude less human
readable than a corresponding XML syntax.


Still, for anybody to write this by hand, both XML and RDF are bad.  This is
why SPARQL is not represented as RDF or XML. The RIF documents also have a
presentation syntax that is not XML even though RIF is XML for interchange.
This is also why we never considered XML or RDF as our own outside syntax,
even though the internal mapping schema happens to be RDF we would not dream
of anyone  interacting with this except via a SPARQL/SQL hybrid syntax.


Regards

Orri



PS:  Harry, this will probably bounce from the list, can you forward this
there since this sender address has never worked with the list?




-----Original Message-----
From: public-rdb2rdf-wg-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-rdb2rdf-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Harry Halpin
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 6:20 PM
To: Souri Das
Cc: RDB2RDF WG
Subject: Re: The syntax issue

> I do see the point for RDF serialization and we should go for it. If the
> mapping specification is written by people familiar with RDF (like us),
> that will most likely be the preferred syntax.
> However, what if we have a DB person writing the mapping. The widespread
> familiarity of and availability of tools for XML could make the
> XML-based syntax more suitable for their use than the RDF syntax.

I would second Souri here. I think what we should have is a XML syntax for
DB designers who may "just" be getting into RDF and a RDF/Turtle syntax
for those who are more familiar with RDF. However, RDF/XML does not count
as a human or even machine-usable XML syntax for people who are not
familiar with RDF, and while I'm tempted by EricP's suggestion have having
the best possible XML syntax that is RDF compatible, I'd have to see a
good example to be convinced that the result will not be needlessly
awkward. Therefore, I'd suggest that we use the simplest possible XML
syntax and have a GRDDL (XSLT) transformation to the Turtle/RDF syntax.

          cheers,
              harry



>
> Thanks,
> - Souri.
>
> Juan Sequeda wrote:
>> +1 for RDF serialization
>>
>> RDF people will be happy with this. But what about the DB people?  I'm
>> guessing Richard can confirm this with the D2R experience. But Souri,
>> what do you think? A DB person with bare little experience in RDF,
>> would they be comfortable?
>>
>> Is there another serialization that we should think about/ plan for
>> the future?
>>
>>
>> Juan Sequeda
>> +1-575-SEQ-UEDA
>> www.juansequeda.com <http://www.juansequeda.com>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Michael Hausenblas
>> <michael.hausenblas@deri.org <mailto:michael.hausenblas@deri.org>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     > But, we should also consider having an XML syntax just b/c of its
>>     > popularity and widespread familiarity.
>>
>>     Hmm, I think in terms of manual editing Richard has made very good
>>     points
>>     and I've so far not really seen good arguments for XML beside the
>>     above
>>     (which is, I think, not the strongest one ;)
>>
>>     > However, as Ashok said, if we have more than one syntax we
>>     should also
>>     > have tools to translate from one syntax to another.
>>
>>     That's easy. If we have Turtle as syntax (which I do prefer due to
>>     many
>>     reasons, most of them already covered by Richard), then I'd claim
>>     that any
>>     RDF processor out there can immediately turn it into RDF/XML :)
>>
>>     Cheers,
>>          Michael
>>
>>     --
>>     Dr. Michael Hausenblas
>>     LiDRC - Linked Data Research Centre
>>     DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
>>     NUIG - National University of Ireland, Galway
>>     Ireland, Europe
>>     Tel. +353 91 495730
>>     http://linkeddata.deri.ie/
>>     http://sw-app.org/about.html
>>
>>
>>
>>     > From: Souri Das <Souripriya.Das@oracle.com
>>     <mailto:Souripriya.Das@oracle.com>>
>>     > Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:01:46 -0400
>>     > To: RDB2RDF WG <public-rdb2rdf-wg@w3.org
>>     <mailto:public-rdb2rdf-wg@w3.org>>
>>     > Subject: Re: The syntax issue
>>     > Resent-From: RDB2RDF WG <public-rdb2rdf-wg@w3.org
>>     <mailto:public-rdb2rdf-wg@w3.org>>
>>     > Resent-Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:02:36 +0000
>>     >
>>     > I have not had time to carefully go thru Richard's
>>     justifications for
>>     > RDF serialization yet, but I think RDF serialization may be
>> needed.
>>     > But, we should also consider having an XML syntax just b/c of its
>>     > popularity and widespread familiarity.
>>     > However, as Ashok said, if we have more than one syntax we
>>     should also
>>     > have tools to translate from one syntax to another.
>>     >
>>     > Thanks,
>>     > - Souri.
>>     >
>>     > ashok malhotra wrote:
>>     >> If we are arguing syntax then we are done :-)
>>     >>
>>     >> If we end up with more than one syntax it would be good if it was
>>     >> possible
>>     >> to automatically translate from one syntax to the other.
>>     >> All the best, Ashok
>>     >>
>>     >>
>>     >> Michael Hausenblas wrote:
>>     >>>> I propose to proceed based on the concepts of Souri's
>>     approach, but
>>     >>>> with an RDF serialization instead of XML as the surface syntax.
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> +1
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Cheers,
>>     >>>       Michael
>>     >>>
>>     >>>
>>     >>
>>     >
>>     >
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 26 August 2010 16:40:28 UTC