Re: yet another simplified RDF syntax: N-triples + abreviation

1. Your bracket language has clearly succeeded in providing a very simple method for introducing abbreviations into text files.  I'm not ready to pronounce it "the simplest possible manner", although I think any possible improvement would be very small.

2. I am a very technically-inclined person, and have written thousands of computer programs.  But I want to scream "Oh No" when faced with an anything+XML program, because I know how much better it could be.  I invented KR before I was exposed to XML, and that made me extra sensitive to the difficulty of reading a "cluttered" XML program.  When I want to understand an XML program, I usually begin by (mentally) translating it into KR, which enables me to "get the big picture at a glance".  
============ 
Dick McCullough 
knowledge := man do identify od existent done
knowledge haspart list of proposition

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris Goad 
  To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org 
  Cc: Richard H. McCullough 
  Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 2:13 PM
  Subject: Re: yet another simplified RDF syntax: N-triples + abreviation


  Richard  H. McCullough wrote:

  >>I read your paper.
  >>  My gut reaction is: nice try, but it's not sufficiently 
  >> English-like to make it easy for humans to read.



  Thanks for your comments.  

  The bracket syntax isn't aimed so much 
  at the human-on-the-street  as at the technically inclined 
  person for whom  a simple syntactic formulation of a simple
  form of data is important (I am such a person).
  The bracket+triple  syntax is based on 
  just four (or so) primitives  that can be explained in a page. 
  The RDF XML syntax relies on a dozen or 
  more constructs whose official documentation runs to 
  dozens of pages, and whose
  details are easy to forget if not used every day.
  The aim of bracket  are identical to that of Tim Bray's 
  RPV (among others), 
  but takes an approach that allows more flexible
  abreviation (and therefore more concision), 
  and is even simpler in terms of primitives used. 
  It seemed to me that separating out the abreviation 
  issue might be a helpful thing to do, and so I thought the
  idea worth writing up and posting to this list.

  English-like syntax, IMHO, is not usually very helpful to 
  what I'm calling the technically inclined - eg, the kind of
  person who might at a minimum write a line of html or Javascript.
  A syntax for RDF that is truly palatable to the rest of
  humanity  might end up being an important thing to have, but
  isn't the main sticking point for RDF adoption at the
  current stage. 


  Chris Goad
  cg@mapbureau.com