- From: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 11:20:54 +0100
- To: rdf core <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
I had an action from the face to face to propose a structure for the documents
the WG is to produce. Below is a strawman for discussion.
Brian
Objectives
==========
o Provide precise, formal specifications of the RDF abstract model,
the RDF/XML syntax, RDF Schema and RDF vocabularies
o Provide understandable, readable, approachable explanations to users
of RDF and RDF Schema.
Target Audience
===============
The audience for these docuements can be broken down as follows:
o Managers etc who want to know what RDF is about and whether they
should be using it.
o Authors of technical books on XML, the semantic web etc. The role
of developing tutorial material for the bulk of developers is filled
by the folks who write these books.
o Higher layer semantic web standards designers who will build more
expressive capabilities on top of RDF.
o Tool builders who design and implement tools that use RDF.
o Data modellers who will design new data models using RDF.
o application developers
Principles
==========
o Strong separation of explanatory material from the hard core
specifications. Only the hard core specifications are normative.
o Use of formal techniques in the specifications where possible.
Documents
=========
Overview
--------
Purpose: High level introduction to RDF and guide to other documents.
All that a manager needs to read to understand broadly what
RDF is trying to do without getting into how it does it.
Answers questions like "What is RDF?", "What would my
organisation use it for?", "Where does it fit into the
family of XML, metadata and semantic web specifications?",
"What do I read next?" and "What is defined and how can
it be extended?".
Audience: Everyone with any interest in RDF. This is the first document
a newbie reads. It's the only document someone needing only
a high level view of what RDF is and what its for should need
to read.
Size: 2-3 printed pages
Status: Non-normative
Style: Short, concise, readable.
Tutorial
--------
Purpose: A tutorial introduction and explanation of the RDF specifications.
Audience: The primary target audience for this document is the book author.
The main goal of this document is to make the specifications
accessible to the book writing community, so that they can fill
in the gaps and write complete tutorials in their books.
This document will also be used by those who eschew the books and
and want to figure stuff out for themselves from the
specifications.
Coverage: Sections covering all aspects of the RDF specs including the
abstract model, the RDF/XML syntax, RDF Schema and basic
vocabularies such as reification and containers.
size: approx 20-30 printed pages
style: explanatory
status: non-normative
RDF Model
---------
purpose: Formal specification of the RDF abstract model.
audience: Higher layer designers, tool builders, authors
coverage: Graph model, n-triple representation, model theory,
n-triple formal grammar as non-normative appendix
size: < 10 printed pages
style: Formal
status: normative
RDF Schema
----------
purpose: Formal specification of RDF Schema
audience: Higher layer designers, tool builders, authors
coverage: type, Class, etc and their model theory
Vocabularies - reification and containers and their model theory
XML Schema data types
links to test cases
size: < 20 pages
style: formal spec, no explanatory material
status: normative
RDF/XML Syntax
--------------
purpose: Formal specification of the RDF/XML grammar and its
transformation to a graph.
audience: Higher layer designers, tool builders and authors
coverage: relationship to XML, grammar, transform to graph,
links to test cases
size: < 10 pages
style: formal spec, no explanatory material
status: normative
Test Cases
----------
purpose: Machine executable illustrative test cases which illustrate
various aspects of the specifiations. Not exhaustive. Not
a validation test suite. Explanatory examples.
audience: All except managers
coverage: everything
size: ?
style: machine executable with comments
status: normative (@@??)
Received on Tuesday, 14 August 2001 06:23:48 UTC