- From: Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:11:16 +0100
- To: "Paul Walsh, Segala" <paulwalsh@segala.com>
- Cc: "Lee Feigenbaum" <feigenbl@us.ibm.com>, public-sweo-ig@w3.org
On 24/02/07, Paul Walsh, Segala <paulwalsh@segala.com> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: public-sweo-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-sweo-ig-request@w3.org] comments like "The thing about > > RDF is that no-one has yet demonstrated any real-world reason to care > > about it" seem to beg for some SWEO intervention. Absolutely. > > I think Danny's response is well-worth reading if you haven't already, > > though I remain personally unconvinced that the original post is > > "well-argued". > > I think Danny was way too kind - the original argument doesn't stand up for > me. In fact, it demonstrates a very confused/fuzzy opinion. > > Some opinions really are more equal than others - Danny's was more equal in > this case :) Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd started with strong disagreement there would less likelihood of anything else I said being considered with an open mind. What definitely is wrong with my response is that it's long-winded and mostly handwaving. While things like tutorials, toollists etc. are definitely needed (they exist, but they're not very well collated), and wordy blog comments may help a little, they don't in themselves offer anything attractive to the typical web developer. Benjamin's comment earlier was spot on: [[ Try to avoid talking about "potential" uses, it's a "shake head and laughter" trigger in MF circles. ]] I really struggled when writing that comment to think of demonstrations of "real-world reasons to care". There are a lot of demos around that prove various invidual concepts (e.g. SPARQLing), but their coolness only really appears when you extrapolate and join the dots. It's not obvious. I think Lee's right in saying the microformats community in general aren't interested in being cooperative with the RDF crowd (and no doubt some like the "we succeeded where RDF failed" rallying cry). It's understandable, we haven't *demonstrated* there's anything we can offer. Personally I'd be inclined towards a "let them get on with it" kind of approach, because they are oriented towards good practice with standards, good for the web. Except firstly there are a few holes - profile URIs being a big one, microformat data isn't GRDDLable without them, but that's not a priority to most microformats folks. The other question is what happens next. There is a clear evolutionary path from domain-specific microformats to more generic data embedded in HTML. We've even got two specs for it - eRDF and RDFa. But there's a very good chance of other paths being taken, ones which aren't so RDF-friendly. If you go back the original syndication wars [1] between "simple" RSS and RSS/RDF, the immediate outcome was two branches both getting considerable adoption. But the only applications for RSS were simple aggregators/newsreaders, and although ("simple") RSS 2.0 is a bit rubbish, it's more-or-less adequate for that use. In terms of deployment, I would guess "simple" is a now lot more widespread than RSS/RDF, especially if you include the bugfixed version Atom. (There's irony in that much of the motivation for Atom came from syntax issues with RSS 2.0). While RSS 1.0 was/is perfectly good RDF data, adoption and development of RSS was largely driven by a single-purpose application, effectively one domain: blog/newsreading. The net result is something optimised for that application, the generalization offered by RSS was switched off. Microformats do cover a variety of domains, and can potentially target a raft of different applications. But still there's likely to be a tendency for the potential to be viewed in an unnecessarily narrow fashion, and the evolution of microformats being influenced by this. Sooner rather than later we could do with some more interesting apps that consume and use microformat data. Bleah, this has turned longwinded and mostly handwaving. Skip to the conclusion: "Show don't tell". Commenting on the post mentioned here would have been a lot easier and more effective if I'd been able to point to a list of relevant, compelling apps (and/or screencasts). Cheers, Danny. [1] http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/09/06/history_of_the_rss_fork -- http://dannyayers.com
Received on Saturday, 24 February 2007 12:11:25 UTC