Re: Blank nodes must DIE! [ was Re: Blank nodes semantics - existential variables?]

Hi Martynas,

On 7/1/20 7:44 AM, Martynas Jusevičius wrote:
> Why do you assume that developers are the end-users of RDF? 

I want average developers to be able to create applications that use 
RDF, just as easily as they currently create applications that use JSON 
or XML.  This is *necessary* if RDF is to be adopted in use cases that 
require widespread adoption.  RDF is currently a niche technology.  I'd 
like it to become more than that.

> And that the arbitrary 33% of them should be using it?

I think RDF is currently too elitist.  I want to change that, and that 
means making it easier for *average* developers, because statistically 
it is not possible to have everybody above average.

> What is this assumption based on? If that is what EasierRDF rests on,
> I'm afraid it's misguided from the start.
> 
> You further conflate "user experience" with "developer experience".

Sorry, I probably should have written "developer" sometimes when I wrote 
"user".

> RDF-driven systems can be flexible enough to expose the features RDF
> enables through a UI, without exposing the RDF itself (primitive
> example: Google structured search results). That is what we should
> aspire to build.

Agreed.

> Not the best example, but in a sense this is similar to us using
> telecommunications everyday which are built with Erlang, without
> realizing that. You don't expect 33% of developers to learn Erlang
> because of that, do you?

If you are arguing that it is okay that RDF is too hard for most 
developers -- that they shouldn't be trying to use RDF anyway -- then I 
completely disagree.  If RDF remains as a niche, elitist technology I 
think it will eventually die out, as it is overtaken by other graph 
technologies whose capabilities will steadily expand and eventually 
cover RDF's use cases.

I would rather see RDF evolve toward becoming higher level, easier to 
use, and become more mainstream.

> If I were you, I would be fuming at universities that teach a 40-year
> old programming curriculum, rather than at a set of well established
> and widely deployed standards.

I'm not angry at the RDF standards!  I've been an RDF advocate for 
*many* years, and I want it to grow and thrive instead of dying out.

David Booth

Received on Wednesday, 1 July 2020 12:13:07 UTC