RE: Network Transfer Syntax

Andy,

Is this just the "transfer" syntax for query expressions?  So, if we are
doing a bookmarkable
query, then this would be the query string?

-bryan

-----Original Message-----
From: public-rdf-dawg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-rdf-dawg-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Seaborne, Andy
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 7:00 AM
To: public-rdf-dawg@w3.org
Subject: Network Transfer Syntax



An important value having a W3C recommendation in this area is to enable
interoperation of independently developed systems.  For me, the fact the
name is "data access" is key - it is providing the ability of one system to
access information on another system without needing to know the specific
details of how the remote system is implemented.  An important aspect of
this is the network transfer syntax (also known as the on-the-wire syntax).

The network transfer syntax (NTS) does not have to be the syntax presented
to the application writer.  This is particularly true if we have several
presentation syntaxes of a common abstract query capability (we have 3 so
far).  Each presentation syntax would be targeted at a specific environment
or usage (they may not even be syntaxes but programmatic APIs).

But it really does help to have one single network syntax.  This
serialization of the query language should be reasonably compact, be able to
represent the full range of query capabilities and be easy to parse to
extract the abstract query syntax.

Local query would not need to go through the NTS, it could remain in the
application presentation syntax.

Dan's limited complexity requirement seems most important here.  While any
presentation syntax will need to provide features that are good for its
environment (e.g. business logic formatting requirements) that does not mean
that the NTS, the data access language, should have those capabilities when
NTS is passing across system and administration boundaries.

	Andy

Received on Tuesday, 20 July 2004 12:34:29 UTC