thoughts on @resource in current RDFa Syntax draft

Hi all,

Hope the new year is starting well for all! Mark, sorry we won't have
you on this week's call. I've taken a look at the latest RDFa Syntax
document, and it's coming along *very* well. It's clear, precise, and
very useful. Mark, Shane, thanks very much for your work on this. Let's
wrap this up ASAP so we can present this to the WG!

Now, to one of the issues that Mark brought up before the break and that
is reflected in the current syntax draft [1]:

>   <img src="A" instanceof="B" />
> 
>   <div about="A" instanceof="B" />

I think everyone is in agreement that the above two examples yield

   A rdf:type B .

>   <div resource="A" instanceof="B" />
> 
>   <a href="A" instanceof="B">label</a>

This is where we differ. As Manu mentioned in his response, I don't see
this giving the same triple.

> I really, really hope that is ok. :) If it isn't then it means we are
> going to have to add lots of special cases to our parsing rules, and
> that gets quite messy.

I think that's not the case. Reading the syntax draft, I think we could
take out a chunk and it would fit with Manu's and my interpretation.
Specifically, all you need to do is take out the line items on @resource
and @href in the [new subject] resolution.

(Looking it over again, I think that the current write-up doesn't fully
account for the @resource examples above, since @instanceof is processed
before @resource and @href. The complete processing rules to support the
@resource/@instanceof example might end up being even more complicated.)

I think we're dealing with *fewer* special cases and a more intuitive
model if we say that [new subject] is resolved as follows in the given
priority order:

 - @about,
 - @src,
 - new bnode if @instanceof,
 - [parent object] if not null (chaining on explicit object)
 - [parent bnode] if not null (chaining on implicit bnode)


I don't see newly enabled use cases if we complicate these rules.


-Ben

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2007Dec/0125

Received on Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:16:39 UTC