Re: proposal: N-Quads as subset of TriG

On 07/14/2013 09:09 AM, Souripriya Das wrote:
> Oracle uses N-Quads.
> A new name  for the proposed syntax would be better.
> Some additional possibilities for names: T-Quads, Q-TriG, ...

I was mostly thinking about Oracle when I mused about whether we should 
be changing the name of N-Triples when we change little details of how 
it works and make it Recommended.   Do you have an opinion on that?

      -- Sandro

> - Souri.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: sandro@w3.org
> To: public-rdf-wg@w3.org
> Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 12:14:06 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: proposal: N-Quads as subset of TriG
>
> Thinking about our abundance of RDF syntaxes, I'm wondering if we can 
> make N-Quads be a subset of TriG. Specifically, I'd suggest each line 
> of an N-Quads file either be:
>
>     1.  An N-Triples Line
>     or
>     2.  GRAPH <iri> { an-n-triples-line }
>
> I know this isn't compatible with old N-Quads.  That's a shame.   But 
> it would make N-Triples, N-Quads, Turtle, and TriG all just be 
> profiles of the same language, readable with the same parser.   And 
> that language is closely aligned with SPARQL, being the same where one 
> would expect it to be. That seems like a very good thing.
>
> It would mean the W3C Recommended RDF languages would be: RDF/XML, 
> RDFa, JSON-LD, and TriG (with its profiles, especially Turtle).   
> Those are each so obviously different, I see little possibility of 
> confusion or need for advice.    And that's a very good thing.
>
> Maybe we should use a different name, since it's not at all like 
> N-Quads.   Perhaps "Line-Mode TriG" or "Primitive TriG" or "Line 
> Quads" or "TriG Line Dump" or "Dataset Line Dump Format".     (Do we 
> want to rename N-Triples, too?  I know 2013 N-Triples isn't exactly 
> the same as 2004 N-Triples, so maybe a new name would be helpful?  Or 
> is it close enough that the same name is fine.   N-Triples and N-Quads 
> are rather obscure names.)      Maybe "N-Triples with named graphs" or 
> "Dataset N-Triples".
>
> I guess the problem with this would be if lots of people are using 
> N-Quads as is, in the open, and are totally not convinced by this 
> argument.  If they're going to keep using non-TriG N-Quads, even if we 
> do this, that would be a little awkward.   Is anyone reading this 
> potentially in this camp? Or do you know anyone who is?
>
> If not, can we please align on one language like this?
>
>      -- Sandro