Re: thoughts on @resource in current RDFa Syntax draft

Hi Ivan,

> I must say that my understanding (and the current status of my
> implementation) is currently in line with Ben's and Manu's. And, running
> this through my implementation, I get... nothing. No triples. And I
> think this is actually al right...

Ok...but we have just been through a very lengthy and detailed
discussion about chaining, and the whole point of chaining is that
resources might be subjects and objects at the same time.


> The problem I see is the @href/@resource situation. Remember that @href
> and @resource behave almost identically except for the priority and the
> usage of CURIE-s (we actually had to discuss whether we would have
> @resource at all!).

Actually, we used to have @resource, and @href wasn't used at all. It
took Ben a while to convince me to find a way to drop @resource in
favour of @href, but of course he was exactly right (his famous
'bridging the clickable and semantic webs' argument was the clincher).
The more recent discussion you are referring to was about supporting
both attributes (or in effect, restoring @resource).

(I know, I know...you're not interested in the history. :) I'm only
pointing this out because you're reminding me of an old discussion,
and I'm just pointing out that there is an even older one.)


> So I would expect you'd assign the same behaviour to
> @href, too. But look at the following
>
> <div about="#A" rel="a:b">
>    <a href="http://some.where">Something</a>
>    <span rel="some:else" resource="#C"/>
> </div>
>
> My expectation is that the following would be generated
>
> <#A> a:b [ some:else <#C> ].
>
> However, if I followed your logic, then the
>
> <#A> a:b <http://some.where> .
>
> triple would also be added.

Yes...definitely. That's the goal. Just so that I understand you, if
you replaced @href with @resource in your example:

  <div about="#A" rel="a:b">
    <span resource="http://some.where">Something</span>
    <span rel="some:else" resource="#C"/>
  </div>

are you suggesting that you would still get *only* this:

  <#A> a:b [ some:else <#C> ].

That goes against the whole 'hanging rel' or 'incomplete triple' thing
that I've been arguing for, and that I thought we'd all agreed on.


> My feeling is that this is wrong: the user
> uses <a> in the good old way, regardless of RDFa, and through the
> approach you have in mind this cannot be done... unless suddenly
> @resource has a very different behaviour than @href.

I'm not with you. In my approach they are exactly the same--you seem
to be saying that @href and @resource should behave differently, not
me. (I'm sure I'm misunderstanding that last comment, so please
clarify.)


> I do not want to comment on the rest of the mail because, I think that
> is the crucial issue, the rest somehow may follow.

I'm not sure it is. This issue at least, seems to be resolved to me,
but perhaps I've missed something.

Regards,

Mark

-- 
  Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

  mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
  http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

  standards. innovation.

Received on Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:02:38 UTC