Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3

>>>Paul Prescod said:
> Dave Beckett wrote:
> > 
> >...
> > It seems you have some issues with XML itself, unrelated to whatever
> > format it is used for.
> 
> I have no issue with XML. XML trades efficiency and parsing convenience
> for human readability. 

OK, so XML is readable enough for you.  Cool.


> This conversation has gotten WAY off of my original statement.
> 
> I said that:
> 
> IFF RDF is not intended for human consumption, THEN it should not be
> built upon XML. Because then the combined RDF/XML language will have
> traded efficiency for *nothing*.

and the bits of my last message which directly answered that, which
you edited out said:

  so like RDF syntaxes these protocols are for machines *and* people.

  It wasn't me who said that, and I don't agree with it. 

i.e. RDF/XML is also intended for people to read and machines to
process, as much as for all the other XML formats - SVG, CSS, XSLT.

> 
> > ...
> > All of it?  There's lots of punctuation that tends to dominate for
> > more complex stuff.  Hence the joking "perl" syntax comment I made
> > previously - if you want scribbleability of power in the language,
> > you lose some readability.
> 
> I don't know what "scribbleability of power" means but I am confident
> that expressive power and readability are not usually at odds with one
> another.

With great power in a little tiny operator, making it easy to
scribble expressive things, you can lose readability.

> > ...
> > In which case, where does your efficiency claim lie?   Formats
> > that people can also read win over your request for binary formats
> > for machine efficiency.
> 
> I made no such request.

Hmm
[[

  RDF/XML: "the machine efficiency of XML with the readability of ASN.1"
  ;)

  If it isn't intended for human consumption then it should be
  machine-optimized binary. 
]]

So I conclude from this and the previous discussion. if it is in any
way intended for human consumption, it should not be binary.

So since RDF/XML is written in XML it is as efficient as XML and
could be said to be as readable as other formats based on XML.

Aren't aesthetic arguments great!

Cheers :)

Dave

Received on Friday, 23 August 2002 17:09:22 UTC