Re: Content negotiation for Turtle files

Hi all,

Fascinating thread, all arguments being quite valid and it seems it all
depends on what you want to achieve with Linked data.

I was about to write a lengthy text to explain my view, but I'll start with
a table to save time and improve readibility:

 *You are..*

*Human*

*Machine*

*You want to…*

*Write data*

Turtle

RDF/XML, JSon, Ntriples

*Read data*

HTML , *Turtle*

RDF/XML, JSon, Turtle, Ntriples

 *Turtle*: like Kingsley pointed many times, it's easy write at hand. Like
Richard pointed, users should use a decent editor, with syntax checking,
possibilities to import objects, classes, properties etc.. easily, maybe a
preview feature that would show a graphical view of the written graph.

However, if reading Turtle is possible, I don't think it's what users would
like in the end. With a plain Turtle file you get the meaning, but zero
usability. With so much interlinked data you want to browse, not to get
Turtle files one by one by manually concatenating the . It's like comparing
the RFC text files (example <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5646.txt>)
with the W3C recommandation pages (example <http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/>),
full of links, or something even more powerful, something like Graphity (my
company's data portal <http://data.nxp.com>).

I can't think of a situation where a machine would write Turtle.

*RDF/XML*: Not readable by humans. Since XML is quite common to store data,
the easiest way to product RDF from XML is to serialize RDF/XML. As pointed
earlier, it's so easy that some people produce millions of rubbish triples.
But don't blame the tool, crappy data was in MySQL DBs, in XML, and will be
in RDF too. Instead of banning or advising against using it, it would be
more productive to bring a light on the pitfalls, the most common mistakes
that a XML developer would make when producing RDF.

*JSON*: Not readable by humans. I'm not very familiar with Javascript
development. However I know enough to know that providing a JS developer
with JSon is a treat, certainly for reading, probably for writing too.

Best regards, and retro-thanks for all the previous threads!

Colin Maudry
@colinmaudry
Product Data Analyst
NXP Semiconductors

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>wrote:

> On 2/6/13 10:00 AM, Richard Light wrote:
>
>> One issue that Turtle will need to address (it may do so already) is
>> software support for free-hand data entry.  While the format is seductively
>> simple-looking (well, it is to the likes of us who grew up on XML/SGML*) it
>> is very easy to make mistakes.
>>
>> I followed Kingsley's reference to his file space (see his separate
>> reply) and grabbed the file jordan.ttl.
>>
>
> Now, you really have to put my directory listing example in context. This
> isn't about perfect data (such doesn't exist) it is all about the ability
> to create and share data. FWIW -- of all the files to pick, you picked the
> one created by my 12 year old son :-)
>
>
>  It contains variations in spelling which will mean that some predicate -
>> subject links will fail (e.g. New England Patriots), as will one sameAs
>> link (USA).
>>
>
> Yes, he is a Pats fan, so I used that to pique his interest en route to
> teaching him Turtle.
>
>
>  There is (I guess) an intended link from USA to N. America, but again
>> this won't fly because USA's continent property is expressed as a string..
>>  If case matters, most of the sameAs references won't work.  The properties
>> (predicates) are all local to the document and none of them is defined.
>>  Integer values are typed as strings. Two of the dates are wrong (e.g. Sept
>> 31 783). This is not to criticise Kingsley's typing, but rather to point
>> out that if you are encouraging users to hand-type resources which are to
>> be interpreted as data, then they are going to need some software support
>> if they are not going to be mightily let down by the whole process.  It's a
>> bit like authoring web pages: it doesn't go too badly if you're working in
>> a rich edit box and don't have to add HTML markup yourself.
>>
>
> As I said, you somehow you stumbled across the Turtle doc produced by a 12
> year old. That file was all about getting him going and then showing him
> the implications of his mistakes etc..
>
> My other Turtle tutorials include sample links to profiles documents,
> stuff I like etc.
>
>
>> Richard
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Regards,
>
> Kingsley Idehen
> Founder & CEO
> OpenLink Software
> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
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> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/**kidehen<http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen>
>
>
>
>
>
>