Re: Please avoid RDF/XML [was Re: RDF/XML syntax for quads]

Yes, I am using an RDF/XML dialect, but it's a perfectly standard
dialect. I wish it would be standardized as some kind of profile.

I have heard all these arguments before. But I know what I'm doing --
as mentioned, we have been using XSLT quite successfully.

Turtle and JSON-LD are fine, but they're simply not XML, and I don't
think transforming them with Javascript or another imperative language
is any more natural than transforming RDF/XML with XSLT.

Anyway, I was asking about named graphs :)

P.S. Sorry if you get multiple copies, I need to sort out my email aliases...

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 9:29 PM, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
> On 06/09/2016 02:20 PM, Martynas Jusevičius wrote:
>>
>> Honestly I don't understand why RDF/XML is getting such a bad rap :)
>
>
> Key reasons:
>
>  1. Other (more modern) RDF serializations are far more
> human friendly, such as Turtle or even JSON-LD.
>
>  2. RDF/XML does not play well with standard XML tooling,
> such as XSLT, XML Schema or RelaxNG.
>
>  3. RDF/XML misleads people into thinking that RDF is a
> dialect of XML, and it is not.
>
> As Kingsley stated on 3 September 2015:
>> The problem with RDF/XML is that it had an exalted position
>> in the Semantic Web realm for way too long. To this very day,
>> many of us are still trying to get folks to understand that
>> RDF is neither a format nor a dialect of XML.
>
> I too have spent too many painful hours coaching XML ninjas
> who were misled in exactly that way, and were performing all
> sorts of unnatural acts in XSLT in ultimately doomed efforts
> to process RDF/XML as though it were "regular" XML.
>
> I don't mean to disparage RDF/XML.  RDF/XML was the best that
> we had when it was created.  But we have much better serializations
> for RDF now, such as Turtle/TriG and JSON-LD.
>
>> Sure, the spec could have been better with fewer variations, but if
>> you don't do nesting and keep descriptions "flat", the output is
>> perfectly predictable. That is the default Jena output and we have
>> been transforming it for years.
>
>
> Then you are using a particular, restricted dialect of RDF/XML that happens
> to be produced by Jena -- not RDF/XML in general.
>
> David Booth
>
>>
>> It is a convenient XML structure when related stuff is grouped under a
>> parent element, such as properties of a resource, or resources of a
>> graph. RDF/XML can provide that, TriX and SPARQL XML results cannot.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 8:06 PM, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 06/09/2016 11:44 AM, Martynas Jusevičius wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hey,
>>>>
>>>> we have a use case where we need an RDF format in XML syntax that
>>>> 1. supports named graphs
>>>> 2. has a convenient structure for XSLT transformations
>>>>
>>>> RDF/XML fails at #1, TriX fails at #2.
>>>>
>>>> I suggest extending RDF/XML with a concept of named graph,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Please don't.  The more we can get away from RDF/XML the better.
>>>
>>> How about using the W3C standard SPARQL 1.1 XML results format, with
>>> quads:
>>> subject, predicate, object and graph?
>>> https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/
>>>
>>> David Booth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Thursday, 9 June 2016 20:00:31 UTC