Re: RDF JS API (aka RDFa API)

Having just gone through the API document, it is indeed quite true that most of the document does not depend on RDFa, in fact. Although I did not do a thorough analysis, the RDFa or, shall we rather say, DOM dependencies are

- the fact that RDFa Document extends the Document interface of the DOM and it has the corresponding getElements* methods
- the way the 'info' attribute is described for a Property Group, though I could imagine that being ignored for not DOM related implementations
- the iterator of the DataParser interface
- the fact that the parser method of the DataParser refers to a DOM Element node as a starting point

and, well, that may be all (I may forget some more, similarly minor places).

Put it another way, the basic interfaces (literals, triples), the store, query, property group, converter, etc, interfaces are completely generic and could be applied to any RDF environment.

So yes, I can see Sandro's point that we have, in fact, defined a to-be-standard WebIDL interface to RDF...

Ivan



On Sep 8, 2010, at 14:26 , Manu Sporny wrote:

> Forwarded message from Sandro Hawke about the RDFa API and outreach...
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RDF JS API (aka RDFa API)
> Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:12:13 -0400
> From: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>
> Organization: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
> To: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> 
> Sorry I got distracted and didn't follow up with you the other day.
> 
> The key issue here is that it seems a document your group is working
> on...
>        RDFa API
>        An API for extracting structured data from Web documents
>        W3C Working Draft 08 June 2010
>        This version:
>                http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-rdfa-api-20100608/
>        Latest published version:
>                http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-api/
> 
> ... is actually not just about RDFa, but provides a general API for
> getting at RDF data from Javascript in a browser.   I think this is a
> good thing to have, but W3C has an obligation to make sure that the
> people who care about a standard have the chance to participate in its
> creation.  I'm concerned that because this has been labeled as "RDFa",
> that hasn't happened.
> 
> So far, given my sample size of one (myself), it hasn't happened. This
> is a technology I care about, and I didn't know standardization was
> happening until it was mentioned in the CG.   Obviously I could be an
> outlier, but I think my experience should motivate significantly more
> outreach, and different outreach (*not* using the "RDFa" brand, which is
> what made me ignore this work so far)
> 
> Did you know that 3.5 years ago we did a survey and 35 people said, Yes,
> we should create a standard Semantic Web API for Javascript in Browsers,
> immediately?  Despite that support, we didn't do the work because we
> didn't have the staff resources.
> 
> See http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/semweb-js-api/results
> 
> Also, 41 people said they would at least follow and review the work.  I
> wonder how many of them know we're doing it now?   We could start with
> the smaller subset, the seven who said they expected to join the WG and
> were already W3C members.  Two of those are in the CG (Michael
> Hausenblas, Lee Feigenbaum) and the others are: Sergio Fdez, Dave
> Reynolds, Fergal Monaghan, Reggiori Alberto, and Pantelis Nasikas.  (Of
> those, I only know Dave.)
> 
> Are any of them in the WG?  (Michael, Lee, and Dave are very plugged in;
> I'd consider them at least as likely to know about this work as me.)
> 
> So, at very least, I'd like to see some publicity, in the form of a news
> posting on the w3.org front page, and postings on semantic-web@w3.org
> which say W3C is making a standard API for working with Semantic Web
> Data/RDF/Linked Data  in Javascript.   Also, I think the shortname
> should change to not start with rdfa.   Presumably this should happen at
> the next publication, in the form of asking for feedback on a new draft
> (when we normally announce to all these locations anyway); probably the
> title should also be changed to something more like "RDF JavaScript
> API".
> 
> Does that make sense, now?
> 
> (Sorry, I still haven't actually had a chance to READ the spec.  :-(
> I'm just going off what you said in the CG meeting.)
> 
>    -- Sandro
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
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