Fwd: To RDF or not to RDF

This is the best argument i've ever read in favor of RDF. Fwarding from the lod mailing list as it may be interesting to the folks scanning this one and not the other


Helena F. Deus, PhD
Senior Scientist, Medical Knowledge Engineering
Foundation Medicine Inc.
hdeus@foundationmedicine.com



Begin forwarded message:

> Resent-From: public-lod@w3.org
> From: <Ora.Lassila@nokia.com>
> Subject: To RDF or not to RDF
> Date: June 21, 2013 9:41:56 PM EDT
> To: <public-lod@w3.org>
> 
> existing thread, and also for probably saying things other folks have
> already brought up]
> 
> I have worked on RDF and systems using RDF for over 15 years now (and on
> RDF's "non-Web" predecessors before that). The most important thing I have
> learned is that while it is possible to do Linked Data and Semantic Web
> stuff *without* RDF, whatever alternative technology you choose, you soon
> feel compelled to add features that make it look like RDF. I particularly
> see this whenever someone comes to me advocating the use of JSON. RDF is
> what it is for a reason, *not* because we arbitrarily threw something
> together.
> 
> So it is not that RDF "looks bad" or whatever people might be saying. It
> is that other technologies and approaches "fall short" of what Linked Data
> and Semantic Web really need. Let's not please reinvent things or shove a
> round peg in a square hole just because someone prefers curly braces over
> angle brackets. Issues like that are not interesting (at all), and we have
> more important things to do.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	- Ora
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Ora Lassila  ora.lassila@nokia.com  http://www.lassila.org
> Principal Technologist, Nokia
> 
> 
>