RE: Set Those Semantics Free

Thanks for your comments, Sean.

[...]
> > I think I see a couple of possible snags in this scenario:
> >
> >   A) The URI (actually URL) isn't under my control. What
> > if Dave refuses?
> 
> I'm sure that Dave is watching, and if not we can always show him what
> we've been talking about. If he decides not to take this approach or
> something similar, I suspect he'll provide a reason either in public
or on
> request, so you could discuss it further with him then.

I didn't come out the way I wanted. Sorry, my bad. I'll rephrase that:

  A) The URI cannot point to an RDDL document. (Three examples: the URI
is not a URL, the URI/URL already has a well-known resource at its end
which cannot be changed, the document producer does not control the
URI/URL but would like to associate RDDL information with the document.)

> Really, I'm just approaching this from a technical viewpoint: I'm
simply
> advocating the use of RDDL as a potential benefit to the users of RSS.
> This
> approach is neat because no one really loses anything, but we still
have
> to
> discuss it and make our case.

I couldn't agree more. I'm a technical guy myself, and generally try to
avoid political issues like the plague.

> >   B) How would an RDF reader "know" what URIs to download and
> > read as RDDL? RSS 2.0 is namespace-extensible, so readers
potentially
> > have to try several URIs, never knowing which the "correct" one is.
[...]
> Anyway, the point is that if you want to get the RDDL catalogue for a
> file,
> you should use the namespace of the root element, and that in RSS 2.0
none
> of the namespace extensions could change the nature of the root
element
> (otherwise they'd change the meaning of the document).

Okay, although if I were an RDF developer I might have liked something
more explicit than that.

[...]
> Think of the similar situation with XML schema: you don't embed a
schema
> documents in instances: instead, you used the xsi:schemaLocation
attribute
> (in fact, RDDL makes that unnecessary too).

Generally, you want to put all the slowly-varying stuff in an external
document (for caching, to save bandwidth and disk space, to make central
modifications easier). However, there are sometimes benefits for
in-lining. DTDs, for example, can be either.

[...]


Ziv Caspi
  cell: +972-53-668-751
    web: http://radio.weblogs.com/0106548/

Received on Thursday, 19 September 2002 07:48:05 UTC