Re: Coming to consensus on the default datatype

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Mark Birbeck wrote:
> 
> 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 is true.

>                That's not so clear with XML literals though. Since an
> author already has some mark-up in their document, 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.

Yes, I see your point.

> 
> 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.
> 

In which case my previous proposal saying datatype="" for plain is
probably not right didactically. In other words, two keywords are needed
for that purpose. I let the choice be done by you anglo-saxons, my
hungaro-french dialect may not be good enough for that:-)

Cheers

I.


> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 

- --

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
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Received on Wednesday, 21 March 2007 13:33:35 UTC