Re: How would option b) on the last straw poll of 12 March work?

I am not talking of people who would use SHACL technology.

I am talking of people who would implement SHACL engines.

I do not understand your reply because I thought that these were the people you were concerned about in your original email.

Are you now saying that this other audience 

> people who have figured out a bit of Python or Javascript, but whose main job is keeping the organization's system and network running with duct tape and chewing gum.
> 

would and should actually read and understand Z semantics or some mathematical axiomatic descriptions, but would find SPARQL more difficult to understand?

> On Mar 14, 2015, at 11:23 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 3/13/15 7:39 PM, Irene Polikoff wrote:
>> <If that's the case, it seems misled to justify using SPARQL on the
>> basis that people are familiar with it. Clearly these aren't the same
>> people. So, who is our target audience?>
>> 
>> I meant people who would be implementing SHACL engines. I assume these
>> will be software developers who know RDF very well.
> 
> "software developers who know RDF very well" is a pretty high bar. It is likely to preclude the kinds of home-grown or open source implementations that make technologies available and affordable to the mass of Web contributors. I work in an environment where any price but $0 for software is generally too much, and "development" is done by people who have figured out a bit of Python or Javascript, but whose main job is keeping the organization's system and network running with duct tape and chewing gum.
> 
> I have to make the comparison to HTML. HTML can be created by anyone who can figure out three or four things to put between <>. Really great HTML takes a lot more, but with non-great HTML anyone can put a document on the web. So, how do we do something similar for RDF? Something that can be used crudely by untrained folks who can copy from a simple example, and yet can be powerful in the hands of those software developers who know RDF well.
> 
> We've talked about templating, and templates will obviously be very useful, but not if the only engines are in professional-grade (and expensive) software. Again, looking at HTML, CSS is very powerful and very complex, so there are web page templates that one can use, but the "engine" that interprets this is the web browser, which is free software. Will it be possible to have RDF and SHACL in a browser? In common software like WordPress and Drupal and others? (And for all that schema.org has major problems, it is indeed being used in this way. Simplicity wins over complexity, warts and all.)
> 
> kc
> 
> -- 
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600
>