RE: thoughts and some refs about AFS-2 UC (simplicity, minimalism )

Rob,

A query language on its own provides some benefits but it still means
developers are tied to a single toolkit for their application and their
storage.  I would like to see a simple protocol (c.f. the concept of JDBC
but without the need for client-side specific drivers) so that selecting the
RDF storage technology is separate from the choice of
application/business-logic level software.  Whether that separation is
across the web or across a LAN, still requires agreement.  A recommendation
means that software providers can choose to provide systems that can be
mixed.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the term "distributed query" - to me
it means wide area, federated data sources with source selection and
possibly query partitioning and routing.  That is out of scope.

Earlier Rob said:
> If one were able to express a query
> in text form and get a text result, then I think all the other standards
> take over from there; it's pretty hard to screw that up in SOAP.

True - but if the way one system decides to do it in SOAP is different, even
at a trivial level, to another system means that apps are tied to one
toolkit.  I see the access protocol as being the communicate means -
"protocol" is a grand, more like a documenting of a way to use SOAP or HTTP
so there is mix-and-match of software components.

	Andy

-------- Original Message --------
> From: Rob Shearer <>
> Date: 22 March 2004 19:34
> 
> Sorry if I wasn't clear. I think KC and I are actually in agreement (for
> the most part).
> 
> I worry that two such deliverables are so independent that they're not
> two parts of a single recommendation; they're two completely independent
> recommendations. Scope, time frame, and member interest all seem very
> different between the two.
> 
> It also seems that the second document (distributed architecture) is
> dependent on the first (query language).
> 
> I propose that this working group work towards an initial free-standing
> recommendation which addresses query language only (as always keeping
> longer-term goals in mind). After delivering that recommendation, we can
> work toward a network protocol and distributed querying architecture.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Kendall Clark [mailto:kendall@monkeyfist.com]
> > Sent: 22 March 2004 11:21
> > To: public-rdf-dawg@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: thoughts and some refs about AFS-2 UC
> > (simplicity, minimalism )
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 10:59:32AM -0800, Rob Shearer wrote:
> > > 
> > > I'm very skeptical of the "two document" approach to a single RDF
> > > query spec. It strikes me as an artifical link between two
> > > independent issues. If we want to address both problems, let's let
> > > them stand independently and vote up or down on them independently.
> > 
> > Maybe I wasn't clear? Our charter talks about a query language and a
> > data access protocol. These strike me as rather orthogonal; hence,
> > specifiable in separate documents, both of which would be deliverables
> > of this WG. Eventually we'll have to start thinking about the
> > documents this WG is going to produce, and it seems, at this very
> > early date, that something like a doc for the query language and a doc
> > for the data access protocol (plus some supporting docs, notably, a
> > primer) seems a relatively decent starting place.
> > 
> > I'm not sure I know what you mean about "two independent issues" and
> > "artificial links" between them, Rob.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Kendall Clark

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2004 05:28:50 UTC