Prospects for Alternative Serializations (was: XENT)

Note [1]. 

> [RDF/XML] may be too widely deployed now for any 
> alternate serialization to seriously challenge it, and 
> that, like it or not, is going to put off a lot of 
> people from using RDF. It's a shame that the main 
> barrier to alternate serializations, and hence RDF's 
> adoption, is an historical/political accident.

I don't know about that.  In the epic adventure to find an alternative
to Document Type Definitions, XML Schema appears to be pretty
entrenched; however, alternatives like Relax NG and Schematron still
seem to be doing well.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if XML Schema
and Relax NG are eventually united [2].

I think the key for alternatives to initially "succeed" (whatever that
means) is by compatibility with RDF/XML through XSL Transforms.  That
way, even if software is meant to use RDF/XML, it can still use the
alternative serialization.  This is pretty much why I got interested in
using Schematron (all XSLT processors can "validate" XML with it).


> ...but the problem is that proponents of RDF 
> serializations are usually very passionately one-sided 
> about which method they prefer... In other words, people 
> tend to favor one serialization very much over the 
> others. So whilst you'd think that a compromise between 
> them would be a good idea, it'll probably just end up 
> with almost every established member of the RDF 
> community snubbing it :-)

Jack of all trades; master of none, eh?  :-)  Anyway, I don't think a
compromise of different serializations is necessary.  Both Docbook and
HTML are used to compose manuscripts; however, their relationship is
more complementary than competitive (Docbook is most often used to
publish on dead-trees; HTML is used on the WWW of course).  I think the
same thing will happen in RDF land: different serialization will be used
for different tasks.  Even though, I still assert that they should all
be "compatible" through XSL Transformations for any to succeed.

L8r.

--
Jimmy Cerra

] "My mind is slipping away...
]  day by glorious day." - RAG III

[1] Message broken up because there seemed to be two separate topics
being discussed.  Message originally under "RE: XML Enriched N-Triples
(XENT)" heading.

[2] Similar to the way UML united the Booch, OOSE, and OMT
object-oriented notation systems.

Received on Monday, 16 June 2003 00:28:07 UTC