Re: CURIEs vs. QNames

On Nov 28, 2005, at 11:56 AM, Ben Adida wrote:
[...]
> 1) Should HTML authors be able to designate abbreviations for common  
> RDF namespaces, like Dublin Core?

I dunno; that seems like a pretty detailed design question. I think a  
more relevant
question is: should HTML authors be able to write Dublin Core metadata  
in their
documents in a way that is familiar and convenient to them?

Yes. (and note GRDDL implementation experience
http://www.w3.org/2000/06/dc-extract/form.html )

It would be nice to have a more complete dublin core use-case, showing  
why
it matters that they don't just write the title/author/date information  
in plain text.
What occurs to me is doing a SPARQL query over data from a bunch of  
documents.

> The task force believes the answer is YES. Taking into account the  
> requirement that hand-authoring HTML with RDF/A be reasonably doable,  
> it's inconceivable to require authors to fully cite the Dublin Core  
> namespace URI in every property of every page. Web pages would not be  
> maintainable without them. Customers like the IPTC wouldn't even  
> consider RDF/A without these abbreviations.
>
> 2) Should these abbreviations be able to handle all valid RDF URIs?

I'm not sure what "valid RDF URI" refers to.

Perhaps you mean URIs that end in non-name characters?

i.e. this issue?
http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/#rdfms-qnames-cant-represent- 
all-uris

No, I don't see a need to make a syntax for those that's convenient for  
HTML authors.
In particular, the dublin core URIs are all of the form concat(NS, N)  
where NS
ends with a non-name character, and N is an XML name.

> The task force believes the answer is YES, again, as per the  
> requirement that our solution allow for maximal RDF expression. This  
> means QNames don't quite cut it. (Not to mention that the TAG says  
> QNames shouldn't be used to abbreviate URIs.)
>
> 3) Should this abbreviation syntax overload the QName syntax?

I'm not at all sure what "overload" means here.

> Well, now there's the rub. We initially thought so, and I still think  
> so, but there are good arguments against it, and we're currently  
> discussing alternative syntax.
>
> Which parts do you disagree with, and why?
>
> -Ben
>
-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Monday, 28 November 2005 18:47:12 UTC