Re: Versioning (again, sorry!)

Paul Gearon wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Lee Feigenbaum <lee@thefigtrees.net> wrote:
> <snip/>
>> Could you explain the confusion some more? I was a proponent of naming
>> everything "2" in the first place, but I don't really see the complexity in
>> Steve's example above. It seems reasonable to give a list of different
>> versions that a particular application needs. Even if all the components of
>> this round of standardization had the same number, it seems it would still
>> be likely to have applications that need different versions. I don't think
>> that the "standardization round" should really have too much impact on how
>> people think about the individual components, but I'd like to understand
>> where the potential confusion is.
> 
>>From a technical perspective (particularly as an implementor), I'm
> fine with things as they are. However, the public appear to find it
> unnecessarily complex.
> 
> The general public are aware of a version of SPARQL that they call
> "version 1". There is very little awareness of the protocol being a
> part of the spec, so SPARQL just refers to all of it. Most people (who
> are interested in these things) are also aware that SPARQL is being
> updated at the moment, with most people adopting the moniker "SPARQL
> 2".
> 
> Generally, people don't seem to have an issue with the next version
> being 1.1 instead of 2, so that's fine. But when we say that SPARQL
> will now be in several parts, with the query language and the protocol
> being 1.1 and the update language being 1.0, that's when the confusion
> comes.
> 
> Having different version numbers for different parts of the spec is
> forcing a lot of people to be aware of the fact that there ARE
> different parts of the spec. That's all well and good for us, but the
> majority of people are just trying to figure out how to talk to a
> database, and are learning whatever they need to make it work. The
> proposed versioning does NOT work for them, and they make up the
> majority of potential users.
> 
> Contributing to the complexity of the situation, the Update 1.0 spec
> depends on the Query 1.1 spec, again mixing version numbers - and
> simply to use a single part of the spec (Update).
> 
> I get it, you get it, and anyone intimately familiar with SPARQL gets
> it, but the spec is being made available for the general public, and
> they don't get it.

So that I understand whether we're in a position to re-open this topic 
or not, is this a theoretical "they don't get it" or an actual "they 
don't get it"?

> If I had to explain it to someone (and I often do) then personally I'd
> like to say, "SPARQL 1 had two parts. The first part lets me do
> queries, and the second part describes how to connect to a SPARQL
> server and talk to it. SPARQL 2 also has those parts, expanding
> significantly on the capabilities of each. It also has a third part
> that lets me update data in a database."

Yeah, this is pretty much how i've been doing it, myself, without any 
sort of confusion that I've noticed. (See slide 3 of 
http://www.slideshare.net/LeeFeigenbaum/sparql2-status .)

Lee

> Any versioning scheme that fits into that description (or something
> like it) would be supported by me.  :-)
> 
> Regards,
> Paul Gearon
>

Received on Thursday, 8 October 2009 04:40:25 UTC