Re: Coming to consensus on the default datatype

Hi Ivan

> > If we're going to do this, perhaps we should also invent a similarly
> > short 'trigger' for XML literals? That would mean that authors don't
> > need to set up the RDF namespace which adds a lot of extra typing, and
> > more importantly a potential 'scare factor'.
> >
>
> Hm. I see what you mean, it makes sense. Having said that, if one wants
> to use other datatypes (eg, integers), one has to use the xsd:
> namespace, right? Or do we want to have a similar keyword for each of
> the xsd datatypes? It can be done, but it is a bit shaky: what happens
> if the Schema folks upgrade their datatype definitions? We loose:-(
>
> I do not really have a strong opinion on this, I must admit.

I'm not worried about the XSD datatypes, since to an XHTML author it
would at least be clear that when they want 'a datatype' they have to
do some work. That's not so clear with XML literals though. Since an
author already has some mark-up in their documen, the author will most
likely simply be trying to say 'all of the following mark-up is
significant'. The fact that the way RDF achieves this preservation of
the significant mark-up is by flagging the literal with a datatype of
'rdf:XMLLiteral' is ideally not something the author would need to
concern themselves with, since it's an implementation detail.

So my suggestion is partly about removing the need to create a
namespace, and partly about avoiding mentioning RDF when I think we
can make it so that XHTML authors don't really need to be aware of it.

Regards,

Mark

-- 
  Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

  mark.birbeck@x-port.net | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
  http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

  standards. innovation.

Received on Wednesday, 21 March 2007 12:53:03 UTC