Re: comparing XML and RDF data models

On 2 Jul 2008, at 08:43, Olivier Rossel wrote:

>> Any XML instance can be considered a compact, early-bound  
>> serialization of
>> an infoset RDF graph.
>
> +1.
> XML is very powerful when it comes to presenting data (because it
> details how data imbricate with each other). But XML is very unnatural

No, please no. Don't make such claims without backup. What's  
unnatural for you may be very natural to other people. And   
naturalness doesn't matter if *effectiveness* is at issue.

> when it comes to crawling the data in an unexpected and ever-changing
> manner (because XML tree structure is chosen once for all,
[snip]

And this is just false. Google for "open content model". Look at XML  
Schema's "lax" and "skip" validation modes. Consider transformations.  
(I.e., many XML people are perfectly comfortable treating the "input  
tree" as just one step, not a fixed one)

RDF structure is similarly fixed in advanced (by and large).

This kind of talk, aside from being wrong, helps marginalize the  
semantic web and related technologies.

In general, if you are inclined to make a general "betterness" claim  
based on some abstract feature, don't. If you are going to anyway,  
make sure you have every detail nailed with concrete, preferably real  
examples ready to hand. Even then, one is better off just presenting  
the goodness without contrast. If it's good enough, people will come.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 09:26:46 UTC