Re: A new approach to accomplishing RDFa Profiles

On 03/20/2010 04:28 PM, Mark Birbeck wrote:
> I realise that some people don't like the fact that prefixes and
> tokens now occupy the same space, but I do feel that we're now at a
> point where the onus should be on those people to come up with more
> than just 'I don't like it', or 'authors won't get it'.
> 
> The reason I feel compelled to ask for this to be properly discussed
> is that by doing what I'm suggesting, we do a number of crucial
> things: ...

+1 to everything Mark said about collapsing prefix/keywords into a
single concept - "a list of mappings".

The more time we spend discussing it, the more convinced I am that it is
a natural progression that will simultaneously simplify implementations
and lead to a more unified mental model for RDFa. Instead of having to
track two concepts - prefix and keywords, authors will only have to
track one concept - "a list of mappings".

Besides - if we think that authors are capable of understand chaining,
surely they're capable of understanding a "dictionary of terms":

definition -> meaning
definition -> meaning
definition -> meaning

which becomes this in the RDFa 1.1 mental model:

foaf   -> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
Person -> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person
title  -> http://purl.org/dc/terms/title

Contrast this will keeping the concepts separate, there will be two
"dictionaries" that they will have to keep track of in their mind:

"dictionary of prefixes"

foaf   -> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
dc     -> http://purl.org/dc/terms/

"dictionary of keywords"

Person -> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person
title  -> http://purl.org/dc/terms/title

I know there is resistance to unifying prefixes/keywords - but I don't
necessarily understand the argument at this point.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: PaySwarming Goes Open Source
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2010/02/01/bitmunk-payswarming/

Received on Sunday, 21 March 2010 16:52:25 UTC