RE: An updated draft of the schema.org/Action proposal

+public-hydra

I prefer to comment here on the list instead of doing so directly on
document [1-2] so that it is properly archived and that I can forward it to
the Hydra mailing list as well.

On Saturday, November 09, 2013 12:33 AM, Sam Goto wrote:
> It has been a while since we've sent our latest update on the actions
> proposal, so I tried to merge all the different
> updates/improvements/feedback we got from different parts into an updated
> proposal.
>
> Here is the new draft (and here is a version you can write comments on if
> you'd like).
>
> We have solidified things in different areas, but most importantly the (a)
> actions hierarchy, (b) the properties / semantic roles, (c) the statuzes
> an action can be at and how to represent it, (d) a couple of well
> understood action handlers and (e) the addition of Thing.operation to
> point to an action which solves a wide variety of problems.

Great to see hydra:operations being adopted. I'm still worried about the
whole ActionHandler stuff as I've already explained in the past. This
RPC-based model is quite anti-Web and thus I would like to see this stuff
more aligned with how the Web works, i.e., the manipulation of resources by
the exchange of state representations.

I find this draft is a steps backwards in that regard as it couples the data
expected by an action to the action itself:

  "Each action has corresponding arguments/slots/parameters that
   are well defined. Actions define a standard programmatic
   predefined interface between parties (e.g. which arguments
   "Watching a Movie" takes), and ActionHandlers helps with the
   Mechanisms (e.g. invoking an action via an android intent vs
   a HTTP GET)."

Do you really expect to, e.g., have different actions to rent a skiing shoes
from renting a house? Currently RentAction's "parameters" according to your
draft [2] are "landlord" and "realEstateAgent". What's the rationale behind
this decision? I think the sole purpose of the action itself should be to
convey the semantics of what happens or, in other words, what the
consequences I can expect when I invoke an action.

I think I'll write a draft describing how the relevant parts of Hydra could
be integrated into schema.org. Is that something you would be interested in?
I'll probably write it in a similar style than your draft or do you prefer
another form?


> This is by no means done but we feel it is firm enough to have a
> constructive round of feedback from an increasingly larger group. Markus's
> feedback, from hydra, has been overwhelmingly constructive and objective
> and we really appreciate that.

Thanks for the nice words,
Markus


[1]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JDD8kOsSoe2BrQVCm1t2cmcGGlj0gwcvOHfWmXTB
ndM/edit
[2] http://www.w3.org/wiki/images/1/16/Schema.orgActions.pdf


--
Markus Lanthaler
@markuslanthaler

Received on Wednesday, 13 November 2013 20:07:21 UTC