Re: Ongoing objection to RDFa Profiles format (as XHTML+RDFa)

Mark Birbeck wrote:
> Hi Nathan,
> 
>> Likewise I'll chime in with a big +1 for what you've both said, and having
>> those profiles in (X)HTML+RDFa opens the door to a lot of functionality
>> (indeed everything HTML, RDFa and related gives) so I feel it would be wise
>> to open that door and promote wide spread RDFa adoption, after all if we
>> can't mark up our own data in RDFa, how can we reasonably expect anybody
>> else to?
> 
> I note that Richard also pursues this argument. :)
> 
> Are you and Richard now going to lobby for N3, SPARQL and RDF/XML to
> also use RDF to define their prefix mappings?
> 
> Hopefully you'll mention to those communities that they can't
> seriously expect anyone to use their technology if they're not even
> prepared to mark-up their own prefix mappings with RDF?

Quite sure I've actually said exactly the same thing recently, in reply 
to Richard too (although I can't find a pointer..) so quite sure I won't 
be taking that stance - however equally I could respond with:

hopefully you (well all of us) will be lobbying these communities to 
also define their prefix mappings in an external document!

Fact is we're dealing with a new use-case which everybody else has 
managed to not bump in to, so it's open territory as to how we define 
those prefixes are defined as the use-case is completely different 
(external vs in doc) - in the same way that we aren't lobbying ourselves 
to define prefixes in rdf in the same document (is that even possible?!)

Anyways, seeing as I've been convinced that externally defined prefixes 
(RDFa Profiles) are needed, and that in many respects I agree with you 
that key-value pairs are a better approach, perhaps I can re-suggest 
something in a different context which may just address quite a few 
CURIE, prefix and profile related matters.

Define a new HTML element <prefix> with two attributes @name and @value. 
to be used as such:

  <prefix name="foaf" value="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">

This would add first level support for prefixes to HTML(+RDFa) which may 
help address the HTML working groups issue 120 about prefixes, and it's 
also quite natural / easy to grok.

And to address profile functionality / external prefixes, we could have 
@profile be treated as an "import prefixes" attribute where the prefixes 
from one document are imported in to another, thus giving the same 
functionality on the prefix side as profiles do - but keeping it name-value.

Failing that, and assuming non-RDF, what approach or new media type do 
you suggest?

Best,

Nathan

ps: lol @ "when you are carrying a hammer, everything looks like a 
nail.", never heard that one before!

Received on Friday, 8 October 2010 12:12:10 UTC