Complexity

RDF isn't that new (it's only been around for about 6 years in roughly its  
current form), nor terribly complex. This argument is similar, I think, to  
the argument that XHTML is to complex because braile translation software  
does not deal with it at all - the fact is that the small market for  
braille translation has been focussed on the much more complex Microsoft  
Word format, and their support for HTML is based on an understanding of  
HTML that is about 10 years old.

Shadi has often noted that there is not a lot of RDF expertise _in this  
group_ - the fact that we tend not to write valid RDF automatically shows  
this up pretty clearly, given the number of tools that are avaialble for  
producing or checking the code. It's like people who don't write valid  
HTML complaining that it is too hard to do so.

I think Giorgio is closer to the real reason why there is some skepticism  
- developers need to see the value in implementing EARL before they are  
going to commit resources.

Any worthwhile cost/benefit analysis needs to include a realistic  
assesssment of the cost of programming with RDF - many developers are not  
aware that there are open-source reliable parsers available in most  
programming languages (at one extreme is Jim Ley's javascript parser, or  
the PHP RDF parsing library RAP. At the other is systems like Jena and  
Redland - complete, maintained, open source parsers). I have seen many  
developers simply assume that it is very very difficult, and thus make an  
ill-informed choice.

Cheers

Chaals

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:41:13 +1100, Carlos Iglesias  
<carlos.iglesias@fundacionctic.org> wrote:

> I think that we need to think about this question before continuing the  
> locating
> discussion, specially because in the last teleconference Shadi talked  
> about some
> reflections on EARL from CSUN [2] and one of them is that tool  
> developers are not yet
> convinced of using EARL, and I think one reason is that EARL is RDF, a  
> not well know
> technology that seems complex, and if we add more unnecessary complexity  
> to the
> specification, with xpointer, fuzzy pointers or so on, it could be a  
> barrier for the wide
> use of EARL.


> [2] [http://www.w3.org/2005/03/22-er-minutes.html#item01]



-- 
Charles McCathieNevile                      Fundacion Sidar
charles@sidar.org   +61 409 134 136    http://www.sidar.org

Received on Sunday, 3 April 2005 04:20:47 UTC