Re: sanity check Re: ISSUE-66

On Mar 3, 2011, at 13:49 , Nathan wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> Just a quick understanding check re Ian's feedback.
> 
> RDFa Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
>> ISSUE-66 (Core - Ian Hickson): Last Call comments from Ian Hickson for RDFa Core 1.1 [LC Comment - RDFa Core 1.1]
>> http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/track/issues/66
>> Raised by: Manu Sporny
>> On product: LC Comment - RDFa Core 1.1
>> RDFa Core 1.1 Last Call comments from Ian Hickson:
>> I believe RDFa should not have prefix-based indirection, for reasons that have been listed many times over the past few years; since this draft adds two new indirection mechanisms rather than removing any, I am not satisfied that my earlier feedback has been adequately addressed.
> 
> Essentially, we need it, it's deployed, re pick it up via 120 on the HTML wg, RDFa itself does have prefix based indirection, it's used heavily etc..

yes

> 
>> The permitted use of xmlns="" as one of the prefix declaration mechanisms specifically will cause serious compatibility issues for reasons that have similiarly been elucidated numerous times over the past few years.
> 
> we're deprecated xmlns for all but bc reasons now - I think the main point is it's mentioned in HTML5+RDFa 50+ times, more than any other term in fact, can we drop that to zero, and express intent to do so to Ian in the response?
> 

???? I am not sure about 50 but I looked at the xhtml+rdfa document and all occurrences of @xmlns are in the XML Schema specification or at the xmlns appearing in the <html> element. These are all legal and have nothing to do with RDFa. (Some of these may also disappear from the HTML5 document.) The same holds for rdfa-1.1 core document 


>> The language as a whole is overly complicated, e.g. with a preponderance of attributes significantly beyond the minimum necessary. Again, this issue has been described in detail in the past.
> 
> RDF caters for lang, some RDFa Host environments do, we've catered for it minimally in RDFa core such that if encountered, say xml:lang or lang in xhtml, then it can be used, otherwise it is unhandled. That is to say, it's not an RDF Core attribute, and usage is delegated to host languages. Fair summary?

My feeling is that he does not refer to language as @xml:lang or @lang. It is a general criticism on the fact that we have more attributes that he would like, where 'language' refers to RDFa as a whole.

I am not really sure how I would answer that. It is way too general as a comment

I.

> 
>> IMHO, you should do some real usability studies (one-way glass and everything) like we did with microdata. Or at a minimum, see if people outside the RDF/RDFa community can actually use RDFa for any non-trivial purpose without help and actually get it right. Or indeed, the same with implementators. So far, every implementor I'm aware of has done it with fundamental bugs in their first attempt. Some have since fixed those bugs, but any technology can be implemented correctly _eventually_ -- whether the bugs get shaken out after years of work isn't the interesting question. What matters if you want long-term interop is whether someone you've never heard of can implement the technology more or less correctly the first time, without being pestered into fixing problems.
> 
> We agree, and see wide spread usage of RDFa with real world usage and feedback from numerous implementers, RDFa core is the product of that feedback, as opposed to some preliminary usability studies, indeed we could never hope to achieve a usability study which matched the scale of the currently deployed RDFa data.
> 
> Of course all the above are my own words between us, just sanity checking our position - any errors in my understanding?
> 
> I will write up a proposed LC response and run it past the group, before doing a formal response.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Nathan
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
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Received on Thursday, 3 March 2011 13:59:50 UTC