Re: Media-types and GRDDL

Dan Connolly wrote:
>>
>> "GRDDL implementations SHOULD support XSLT 1.0 as a transformation
>> language, and MAY support other languages."
>>
>> "Languages GRDDL implementations are encouraged to support include
>> languages like XSLT 2.0 and XQuery."
>
> Is what's already in the spec not sufficient?
>
> [[
> The transformation link type refers to a transformation algorithm that
> should have a available representations in widely-supported formats.
> We expect most consumers to support XSLT version 1[XSLT1] for the
> foreseeable future, though XSLT2[XSLT2] deployment is increasing.
> While javascript, C, or any other programming language technically
> expresses the relevant information, XSLT is specifically designed to
> express XML to XML transformations and has some good safety
> characteristics.
> ]]
>  --  http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec#txforms
>
> Just last week the WG resolved that it _is_ sufficient.
>
> "RESOLUTION: to address [#issue-whichlangs] as per the current draft
> (1.83 2006/08/25 20:23:09). SHOULD support XSLT 1; MAY support others."
>  -- http://www.w3.org/2006/08/30-grddl-wg-minutes#item06
>
> Are you suggesting we re-open that issue?
    I agree the text in the draft is good, but I was under the
impression that we wanted to _require_  (I remember phrasing this as a
"MUST" and then it being objected to being a "SHOULD") GRDDL to at least
support XSLT 1.0 and  that  it _may_  support other languages. Again,
the XSLT 2.0 and XQuery examples have been brought up in public, so I
thought we should use them instead of are in addition to C [1]

>>  media types of the transformation resource to detect the
>> what type of language the transformation uses. For example, if in a
>> XHTML document the link element with a rel="transformation" attribute
>> has an href attribute of  "http://www.example.org/mytransformation"
>> and this URI returns a document with a media type of
>> "application/xslt+xml," GRDDL is licensed to run the transformation
>> using XSLT."
> Do you mean the href attribute of a link element with
> rel="transformation"?
The above sentence was meant to discharge my action on writing a few
sample sentences about how media-types and GRDDL interact, in essence
just making sure people understand the common-sense of WebArch.
>
>> Notice I'm intentionally a bit vague about XSLT 1.0 or XSLT 2.0 here. I
>> believe they share the same media-type. So, to give a single option
>> (since Xquery doesn't have a media-type I think) and to answer this
>> possible issue, here's another tw more controversial sentence:
>>
>> "However, if the resource had a media type of "application/javascript,"
>> GRDDL could run, if the implementation supported it, a javascript
>> transformation."
>>
>> And:
>>
>> "Since many languages do not have media types and multiple versions may
>> share a single media type, GRDDL implementations can use various
>> implementation-dependent techniques to attempt to discover the language
>> or version of a language used by a transformation. However, the only
>> language transformation required to be supported by a GRDDL
>> implementation is  XSLT 1.0." 

>> Required? Again, we resolved to recommend XSLT 1.0, but not require it.
    Hmmm...let's clarify this over the telecon, but it makes sense for
me to at least require one language to be supported across GRDDL
implementations, otherwise we don't get much in the way of
interoperability, which I think is an admirable goal. What's the
argument against requiring XSLT 1.0, and just recommending it?
> I think what's already there is more clear.
    There's just been a number of fairly intelligent people who did not
catch
the media-type story (Liam Quin at first, and now DanBri[2]) and who
want some clarification of what languages GRDDL does require support of.
These sentences were just my first attempt to provide such clarification
of the media-type story.

[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2006Sep/0006.html

-- 
		-harry

Harry Halpin,  University of Edinburgh 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin 6B522426

Received on Tuesday, 5 September 2006 15:06:39 UTC