Re: Merge @type and @datatype

On Oct 2, 2011, at 23:27 , Manu Sporny wrote:

> On 10/01/2011 05:55 PM, Ivan Herman wrote:
>> I am not worried by the implementation issues but... my mind may be
>> too rdf infested:-) and this merge may be a bit confusing. I am a bit
>> afraid that people will then use datatypes as types for subjects or
>> other types for literals. Which may create a mess.
> 
> Speaking as someone else whose mind is also too RDF infested... :P ...
> then they're authoring bad data and their data will not fit in very well
> with the rest of the Linked Data Web, no? Or the application with which
> they're trying to interface with will get junk data?
> 
> I do see your concern, Ivan, and it's valid. However, I wonder if people
> will really make this mistake often enough for it to matter? That is, if
> you're using something that should be used with "rdf:type" with a
> "@literal", then it will become a problem at some point for your
> application. You will educate yourself quickly when somebody else points
> out that you've gotten it wrong.

Ok, I can see that.

> 
> To put it another way, the audience that we're talking about is
> important. If we were talking about web authors and RDFa, I may agree
> completely with you. However, we're talking about developers, who tend
> to be a bit more pedantic about the data that they generate and consume.
> They care about correctness a bit more. I don't think people are likely
> to do this and get away with it:
> 
> "foaf:name":
> {
>   "@literal": "Ivan Herman",
>   "@type": "foaf:Person"
> }
> 
> Another take on this is that people will be confused with @datatype and
> @type - possibly using @datatype with the subject and @type with the
> @literal. There are plenty of ways to get confused with this stuff... so
> which one is the most likely to happen for a newbie? I don't really have
> a good answer to this one, but I do lean towards merging @type and
> @datatype because it will 1) simplify the number of terms people need to
> use and 2) won't result in a catastrophic data mess as I don't expect
> people to use @literal that often (they'll probably depend on @coerce to
> "do the right thing"(tm)).
> 
> Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

I guess that, using the W3C jargon, this is something that could become clearer at a later phase when a larger audience begin to look at this stuff and experiment with it. At the moment, we are all talking about 'feeling', good or bad, about this, which is subjective anyway.

Ie, I am fine switching this if the majority of the group thinks it is better, but we should definitely keep an eye on this and maybe flag as a specific issue that the group would like to have a feedback on.

Ivan



> 
> -- manu
> 
> -- 
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Standardizing Payment Links - Why Online Tipping has Failed
> http://manu.sporny.org/2011/payment-links/
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
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Received on Monday, 3 October 2011 11:08:54 UTC