- From: Rob Shearer <Rob.Shearer@networkinference.com>
- Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 13:24:21 -0700
- To: "RDF Data Access Working Group" <public-rdf-dawg@w3.org>
A developer is programming a new email client (MUA), and the system uses a lot of configuration settings and data, some of which may be relevent to any MUA and some of which is specific to this particular implementation. The developer would like to record all configuration data as RDF. The developer understands the basic RDF data model (a general graph) and knows precisely the structure of the information in which she is interested (i.e. a local username hasAccount account, an account hasServer server, a server usesProtocol protocol, and the local client can only handle #IMAP and #POP as protocols), but otherwise has no expertise in programming graph algorithms or manipulating RDF. She would like to retrieve those aspects of the configuration files in which she is interested, i.e. the server and its protocol for a particular account or username. This use case demonstrates programmatic access of local RDF repositories, and is a close analog of the kinds of applications in which XML and XPath have proven so useful. I think it also demonstrates many of the advantages of RDF over those tools; there could be certain advantages to storing preferences in a personal RDF repository, some of which might even be made publicly available. Hang on, did I just suggest that the Windows Registry was a good design pattern? <shudder>
Received on Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:25:23 UTC