Re: Reconciling hydra rest semantics for collections with typical RDF entity relationships

On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Gregg Kellogg <gregg@greggkellogg.net>wrote:
>
> The _Conformant List_ is one which can be serialized without having
> individual nodes named, and where there is precicely one member of
> rdf:first/rdf:rest and no other properties. This allows things like (1 2 3)
> and {"@list": [1, 2, 3]}. RDF/XML further restrictions that list values
> only be literals, and not bnodes or IRIs.
>
> I think then I understand you correctly: "conformant list" is identical
with "list that obeys the expectations of various serializations." If
that's the case, then extending those serializations would expand the
limits of conformance, right? As a constructive example, something like (1
2 3):<http://example.com/list_of_numbers> might serialize a list where the
first node was an IRI, right? Or {"@list": [1, 2, 3], @head: "
http://example.com/list_of_numbers"} ? (Proposing those extensions would be
a topic for elsewhere, obviously.)


> Breaking with this is certainly possible, but then the serialization
> convenience of using a list must be offset with the complexity of dealing
> with the "linked" part of a list. Other data structures, such as a
> schema:ItemList, hydra:Collection or olo:OrderedList (see
> http://smiy.sourceforge.net/olo/spec/orderedlistontology.html) become
> more convenient and are computationally simpler.
>

Yeah, I'm increasingly enamored with olo - but it doesn't serialize into a
simple list either :/

Judson