JSON and Lists

Dear all,

The current OA model is less intuitive than it could easily be when it
comes to the Multiplicity constructs.  For the FPWD, I think it would be
beneficial to make them easier to understand and implement.

The proposed structure for the oa:Choice is:

  {
    "@type": "oa:Choice",
    "members": ["eg:body1", "eg:body2", "eg:body3"]
  }
Where the members are ordered in descending priority.
(or "items" or other convenient name tbd)

And the exact same structure for oa:List:

  {
    "@type": "oa:List",
    "members": ["eg:target1", "eg:target2", "eg:target3]
  }
Where the members are ordered.

This looks like something that a developer would create using JSON, when it
needed to go into an object (which it does, given the distinction between
List and Choice, and that the object of the hasTarget property must be an
object) [see Issue 12]


Conversely, the current structures expose a lot of the RDF plumbing where
they shouldn't:

  {
   "@type": "oa:Choice",
   "default": "eg:body1",
   "item" : ["eg:body3", "eg:body2"]
  }
Where item is two separate triples, and thus the order is not deterministic.

And worse for list:

  {
   "@type": ["oa:List", "rdf:List"],
   "first": "eg:target1",
   "rest": ["eg:target2", "eg:target3"],
   "item" : [ "eg:target2", "eg:target1", "eg:target3"]
  }
Where, again, the order of the entries in item is not deterministic as
they're separate triples.


Thoughts?  Jacob, please feel free to describe your counter proposal from
issue 1 if you'd like :)


This is related to issues:
  https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/1
  https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/2
  https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/5
  https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/12

-- 
Rob Sanderson
Technology Collaboration Facilitator
Digital Library Systems and Services
Stanford, CA 94305