Re: Issue rdfms-abouteach

Dan Brickley wrote:
> 
...
> I for one will never enourage people to write down useful generalisations
> in aboutEach syntax, because I don't want to have them come back and ask
> me why those rules aren't accessible via the (graph-oriented) APIs, query
> languages, database interfaces etc that they'll have to use to access
> their content. In my experience of talking to RDF developers _and_ content
> producers, there's often misunderstanding about which features of the XML
> syntax are carried through to the abstract graph. So my problem with
> encouraging the use of aboutEach is that it risks creating a huge legacy
> problem: information loss as we go from the RDF/XML into databases, APIs
> etc. Because about aboutEach mechanism _appears_ to be RDF's way of making
> generalised claims about members of a collection, people will likely use
> it as such unless we attach a health warning. Once it becomes clear that
> aboutEach is just a wierd macro mechanism, I believe it'll lose its appeal
> to content producers.
> 

This is (as far as I'm concerned) spot-on, the appropriate pragmatic
argument for dropping aboutEach. Well said!

-- 
Martyn Horner <martyn.horner@profium.com>
Profium, Les Espaces de Sophia,
Immeuble Delta, B.P. 037, F-06901 Sophia-Antipolis, France
Tel. +33 (0)4.93.95.31.44 Fax. +33 (0)4.93.95.52.58
Mob. +33 (0)6.21.01.54.56 Internet: http://www.profium.com

Received on Friday, 16 November 2001 08:38:48 UTC