let's specify meaning rather than processing

Dom,

Regarding...

"An RDF processor trying to extract RDF statement from an XHTML document
first checks ..."
http://www.w3.org/2003/11/rdf-in-xhtml-proposal

I just found TimBL's essay that makes the point we were discussing
on Tuesday:

"When defining a language, whenever possible specify directly the
meaning rather than the sort of thing you would expect some software to
do with it."
  -- The essentials of a specification
        This note is a little motherhood and apple pie about how a
        specification should be couched so as to clearly add a new
        well-defined piece to the technology.
        
         http://www.w3.org/1999/09/specification.html

I said I'd help revise the rdf-in-xhtml-proposal along those lines.
I wonder if that essay gives you enough to get started. Let me
know if it doesn't.


Hmm... perhaps "motherhood and apple pie" belongs in the
ESW Wiki... timbl felt compelled to start this node
at one point...
  http://esw.w3.org/topic/KeepItCrisp

Another related pattern is perhaps...

  "must is for agents"
  http://www.w3.org/2001/01/mp23

I thought perhaps these were captured in

  What is a good standard?
  An essay on W3C's design principles by Bert Bos
  http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/DesignGuide/designguide.html

But I don't see them there.

Other conventional wisdom that comes to mind:
don't put "proposal" in the URI of a spec;
at some point, it will no longer be a proposal,
and we don't want to have to move it to unconfuse
people who peek in the URI at that point.

"What to leave out
 * Status"
 -- http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

So I recommend putting the next draft someplace
like
	http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec

(with links both ways to/from the present one).

And we need a catchy name; it's no fair using
up the whole space of "RDF-in-XHTML Proposal"s.
Something like koala or jeffry or harknerf.


-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Thursday, 8 January 2004 14:00:40 UTC