Re: Hydra Design Goals: How important is RDF?

2015-10-02 16:52 GMT+02:00 Ruben Verborgh <ruben.verborgh@ugent.be>:

> We're not disagreeing that the serialization is important;

Good! :)

> we're talking here about whether or not RDF should underpin it.

Are we? I'm certainly not. If that's what I've communicated thus far,
my communication skills are terrible. And if so, I'm sorry. With "How
important is RDF", I don't mean "I want to remove RDF". What I'm
trying to convey is the following:

Hydra should have a set of design goals. I think one of these designs
goals should be the position RDF has in the technology. In JSON-LD, it
was pretty early on made explicit that RDF was not a goal in and of
itself (as you just wrote), but a means to a goal regarding
self-descriptiveness (and hypermedia controls).

So although RDF enables this in wonderful and powerful ways, it's just
a tool. It's a means to an end. So just because something is possible
to express in RDF should not make its serialization in JSON
unimportant.

> It brings us actually to a much more important point:
> RDF is crucial, because it enables use cases like Martynas' and mine.
> JSON makes it accessible for non-specialized developers.
> And JSON-LD is the bridge between the two.

Yep.

> So how important is RDF? Very.

I agree!

> It gives specialized client developers what they need,
> and—thanks to JSON-LD—also non-specialized developers.

Yes! My point exactly! How does JSON-LD accomplish this? In my
opinion, by not being designed from an abstract perspective where
serialization and such are unimportant details. Instead, JSON-LD
acknowledges the fact that syntax is important and it should be made
understandable regardless of the fact that it expresses RDF graphs and
regardless of whether the consumer of the syntax has heard of RDF
before or not.

> Without RDF, only one of those groups would be served.

Indeed. We should serve both! But I think we need to state this in a
design goal, so "unimportant matters" such as serialization can't be
ignored.

I hope I've made myself better understood now. Just to repeat: I do
*not* want to switch out RDF in any way. I think RDF is very important
and a huge enabler for both JSON-LD and Hydra. I just don't want it to
end up as so important that it lessens the quality of other aspects of
Hydra, like serialization.

I don't want "You can just map this in JSON-LD" or "To RDF, the syntax
doesn't matter" to be arguments against discussing serialization or
syntax. I don't think it's possible to ensure this without stating it
explicitly in a design goal.

:-)

-- 
Asbjørn Ulsberg           -=|=-        asbjorn@ulsberg.no
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»

Received on Friday, 2 October 2015 18:43:12 UTC