Comments on "RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing"

Have skimmed "RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing"; haven't read
every word.

Technical comments:

1. Hal Abelson of MIT pointed out to me that the [...] syntax
    effectively introduces a new kind of URI - it extends the URI space.
    However, we already have a standard way to extend the URI space,
    namely the creation of new URI schemes.  Did you consider doing this
    (curie:prefix:suffix or cu:prefix:suffix or ...)?  It would have
    some advantages over [...]:

    . it would eliminate the need for a new URIor[safe]CURIE datatype
      since you could just use URI

    . it would protect against possible conflicting future extensions of
      the URI space that include [...]

    . it would avoid ambiguity with relative URIrefs that happen to be
      spelled [...]

    . it would avoid setting a precedent; by introducing [...] you
      pave the way for other notations that extend URI syntax in other
      ways, e.g. {...}, <...>

    I know this makes the mapping of the lexical space to the value
    space for the URI datatype context-sensitive (in the same way that
    the mapping for URIor[safe]CURIE is).  I haven't worked through the
    implications of this.

2. 9.1 Please provide complete datatype definitions (CURIE, etc) at a
    level of detail approaching that of the XML Schema
    documentation (e.g. see http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-2/#QName).


Editorial comments:

- Microformats are mentioned in the abstract. Please give a citation,
   as these might not be familiar to all readers.

- I find the term 'URIorCURIE' to be very confusing, because a CURIE is
   not a URIorCURIE.  It is very easy to interpret the name to imply
   you have created a syntactic context that admits either a URI or a
   CURIE, which would create an alarming ambiguity; but you have been
   careful not to do this.  'URIorSafeCURIE' would be more appropriate.
   (But I'm bothered by 'safe CURIE' for a similar reason - a safe
   CURIE is not a kind of CURIE.)

- 3.6 Turtle: Incomplete sentence beginning "However, there are ..."

- I know that "recurse" is in wide use in the sense in which you use
   it, but this is very poor English.  To "recurse" is to curse again;
   what you mean is "recur".  Follow the pattern of "incur /
   incursion".

- 5.4.1 extraneous "then" in first sentence.

- 5.4.2 extraneous "then" in last sentence of note.


Best,
Jonathan Rees
Science Commons

Received on Friday, 21 March 2008 14:11:44 UTC