Re: RDF 2 Wishlist

Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Dave Beckett <dave@dajobe.org> wrote:
>> Jie Bao wrote:
>>> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:
>>>> So, what should W3C standardize next in the area of RDF, if anything?
>>> replace (with backward compatibility assurance) the use of plain
>>> literals with rdf:PlainLiteral [1] - this datatype is defined in the
>>> RDF namespace anyway.
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-text/
>> rdf:PlainLiteral is a hilarious bad idea
>>
>> Don't use it for anything and definitely don't put it into core RDF.
>>
>> If you want to know more - primarily because it cannot encode all RDF
>> plain/typed literals (it is incomplete just like RDF/XML) and has no rules
>> for escaping the characters used for separators (@, <, >).  Hilarious.
> 
> Where did you get that idea? That's simply incorrect. The case of @ is
> explicitly shown as an example in the table. "<" and ">" are not
> delimiters for rdf:plainLiteral.
> 
> In existing RDF syntaxes the serialization is the same as already
> exists for xsd:string and plain literals.
> 
> I'm not advocating that it be introduced into standard RDF syntax,
> btw, but don't like to let this sort of mistake stand.

OK, I had a deeper look at this doc and I apologise - it does seem complete.

However the lexical form definition is poorly described.

It would be improved with examples of how to encode a plain literal with the
string values "", "@" and "@@" since these seem edge cases not covered.


It still remains a bad idea in my opinion because

1) It attempts to update an existing REC without updating the document by
adding a new term to the rdf: namespace

It has this interaction with the rdf/xml recommendation (2004):
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-syntax-grammar-20040210/#section-Namespace
"Any other names are not defined and SHOULD generate a warning when
encountered, but should otherwise behave normally."

That'll be showing up in logs and validators probably.

2) Adds two ways to do one thing

The RDF(2004) REC (concepts, syntax) way, which includes all derived formats
and implementations that are based on rdf(2004) concepts - syntaxes, APIs
and the OWL2(2009) / rdf:text way.


Dave

Received on Tuesday, 3 November 2009 05:20:06 UTC