Re: [JSON] Initial comments

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 7:55 PM, David Wood <david.wood@talis.com> wrote:

>
> On Feb 25, 2011, at 03:55, Ivan Herman wrote:
> > On Feb 25, 2011, at 24:21 , Nathan wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>
> >> Does anybody actually want to write RDF, by hand, in JSON? Up till now
> I'd always seen JSON as something produced by machines (by some data
> providing process, or by JSON.stringify'ing some object structure) and
> something which people just JSON.parse'd back in to an object structure to
> work with that data as simple object/array structure; where the most
> important aspect for all was always simplicity of the data structure.
> >>
> >
> > The question is: what is the usage of JSON in this respect independently
> of RDF? Does anybody want to write JSON manually for any purpose?
> >
> > I really do not know, I am not a Javascript/JSON programmer. Ie, I do not
> know what the practice is. But maybe we should not make this type of
> decision by looking at RDF only.
>
> I think this gets to the heart of the matter.  In my (personal) opinion, we
> are only discussing a JSON syntax for RDF *at all* because Web authors use
> and like JSON (Nathan's second use case).
>
> Our response to date has been something like, "Well, we can easily
> serialize triples into the JSON spec.  That lets you use JSON with RDF.
>  Done."  Unfortunately, that approach doesn't address the way Web authors
> currently use JSON in the mainstream and therefore completely misses the
> point.
>
> It seems to me that we don't need another efficient|better|more
> interesting|different serialization format for RDF.  We only need to
> facilitate the use of RDF data by Web authors for the purpose of allowing
> them to use the fruits of the SemWeb.
>
> So, although RDF serialization in JSON (Nathan's first use case) is easy, I
> don't see the point.
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
>
Hi all,
 i totally agree with Dave, i think Web developers use a lot JSON nowadays,
and i think this WG can help to make a sort of facility to make a bridge
from JSON world and common practice and SemWeb stuff, especially in a linked
data context.

My experience is with the framework SIMILE at MIT, which uses a JSON subset
serialization of the RDF Model[0].
I like the flexibility and the faceted browsing experience based on the
openness of that model.
I think it's a good way to introduce traditional Web developers to the
Semantic Web and Linked Data stuff.

Most of web developers that i have met, simply don't understand the power of
that data model and of this framework, and that's because they don't know
anything of the RDF data model stuff.
It's not simple to make clear this power without a prior knowledge, or is it
possible? That's a good point to make clearer.

Speaking on JSON stuff as input documents, there are useful materials on
SPARQL bindings on SIMILE model[1] and from Talis world on RDF/JSON
relations[2], i'll add them to the wiki.

> We only need to facilitate the use of RDF data by Web authors for the
purpose of allowing them to use the fruits of the SemWeb.

At this point someone talks about the RDF API[3]: how can this help us make
a good JSON - RDF point of contact to a better global human understanding of
the model?

I think it's useful to aggregate the feedback on this topic from the RDF
public questionaire[4] into a wiki page with all the points summarized to a
better understanding of all the implies needs under the JSON serialization
stuff.

   Matt

[0] - http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Exhibit/Understanding_Exhibit_Database
[1] - http://data-gov.tw.rpi.edu/wiki/Simile_Exhibit_JSON
[2] - http://n2.talis.com/wiki/RDF_JSON_Brainstorming
[3] -
http://www.ldodds.com/blog/2010/12/rdf-and-json-a-clash-of-model-and-syntax/
[4] - http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/rdf-2010/results#xg3