Introduction to GRDDL Primer

In regards to my action item (http://www.w3.org/2006/09/06-grddl-wg-minutes.html#action04):

I went back and forth on the analogy with learning a new language (at 
the end) and am hoping for some feedback from the group on whether it helps any or 
should be left out.  Generally, any feedback would be appreciated.

Introduction to GRDDL Primer

XML and RDF technologies address very separate and often orthogonal 
problem spaces: message and structured document formats, meta data, and 
knowledge representation.  Publishers of distributed web content meant for 
both human and machine consumption have much to gain from standards that 
enable both technologies.  The enduring conversation thread on embedding 
RDF in XHTML is a demonstration of this itch which (if properly scratched) 
has the potential to greatly increase the richness of web content 
specifically, and data in general.

GRDDL provides a relatively inexpensive set of mechanisms for 
bootstrapping RDF content from uniform XML dialects in such a way as to 
shift the burden of formulating RDF to transformation algorithms written 
specifically for these dialects.  XML Transformation languages such as 
XSLT are quite versatile in their ability to process, manipulate, and 
generate XML and the use of XSLT to generate XHTML from POX (Plain Old 
XML) is historically celebrated as a powerful idiom for separating 
structured content from presentation.

GRDDL shifts this idiom to a different end: separating structured content 
from its authoritative meaning (or semantics).  The way in which GRDDL 
empowers authors of web content can be considered somewhat analogous to 
allowing a non-native speaker learn the spoken form of a new language 
first, before attempting to master its written form - rather than 
trying to learn both simultaneously.

For a collection of scenarios that demonstrate how GRDDL enables common 
patterns in the management of distributed web data, the reader should read 
the GRDDL Use Cases document.

Chimezie Ogbuji
Lead Systems Analyst
Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
9500 Euclid Avenue/ W26
Cleveland, Ohio 44195
Office: (216)444-8593
ogbujic@ccf.org

Received on Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:13:51 UTC