Re: simplerdf & Towards the future RDF library

Hello Ruben,

> On Sep 12, 2015, at 10:38 AM, Ruben Verborgh <ruben.verborgh@ugent.be> wrote:
> 
> Hi Nicola,
> 
>> 1) Interoperability. We can work on the same library, but what we should do - really -  is to work on the same spec.
> 
> +1 for this, regardless of other outcomes.
> But this would require us to talk about such a spec together.
> For instance: callbacks / promises / streams / (async) iterators?
> And several other questions, notably: how to model a triple?

Agreed

> 
>> 2) Modularization. We can work on one unique library
> 
> Yes, but is such an approach proven to work?
> 
>> but we would gain much more by decomposing all of our libraries
> 
> I think we should make a much closer pro/con analysis to be able to conclude that.
> It depends on the definition of "gain" as well. Performance we won't gain, I'd imagine.

I am not sure what you mean by performance gain - requiring a module is the same thing as requiring a file where you write your functions. Think of Express.js for example, 0.3 -> 0.4 was all about decomposing it in multiple modules.

Actually, a key reason I had when I asked bergos to decompose his library was to improve performance in serving my static js file. In fact, to serve my web app in javascript I can just browserify what I need, instead of browserifying the whole (previous) library.

> 
>> The interesting thing of RDF-Ext is that when it will be completely modularized, then its scheleton would be incredibly thin for everyone to personalize it.
> 
> +1
> 
> But still… some centralized coordination would not be bad.
> It's not clear to me now who decides on RDF-Ext,
> and how we could influence that.
> Can we discuss somewhere about the essentials?
> How do we get involved with the RDF-Ext core?

RDF-Ext was a library by @bergos & friends and I later suggested them to start an organization about the project and that’s how I joined - we actually don’t know each other in real life. I think this shows that the library is really new that it’s there for new ideas and directions.
I am sure @bergos will be open as well.

To directly answer your question, we opened this repo (https://github.com/rdf-ext/discussions) to discuss ideas,
so, what happened so far, was an organic growth of the library - and that’s what we expected to happen.

However, I think that we - as the rdfjs group - can also bring this and the RDF-Ext spec conversation in an appropriate place as suggested by others

> 
> I have the impression that the current scattering of things
> (store here, parser there, query engine somewhere else)
> mostly brings the disadvantages of modularization, not the advantages.
> 
> And I'd happy make my libraries RDF-Ext modules,
> but then I'd like to be involved in the core design as well.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Ruben



Nicola