Re: PRIMER: v 0.1 of scope, outline and issues (lighten up!)

Whoops!  You've already got the sort of material I had in mind, at the 
end under "Template Introduction".  I'll be out of email contact most of 
today, but hope to have some additional ideas for communication this 
evening when I get back.  However, a couple of initial comments:

1.  We might want to think about adding to the scope some discussion of 
types and examples of available tools (e.g., from the W3C RDF pages, and 
from the DAML tool set) that can help people create and process RDF 
(since we're asking people to do additional work, we might want to 
indicate that there is some software, even if only in prototype form, 
that can help with the work).

2.  In Section 1, I think we want to make sure that people see the 
motivation for RDF somewhat independently of the "Semantic Web" (the "S 
word" sometimes turns people off, I find).  That is, we need something 
like RDF for various practical reasons, which happen also to be the 
motivation for "the Semantic Web".

  3.  The ToC suggests we don't get to actually talking about RDF until 
Section 5.  If the preceeding sections are short enough, that may be OK, 
but if they're too long, that may be too long a wait.  Aaron's "The 
Semantic Web in Depth" http://logicerror.com/semanticWeb-long has 
relatively short sections discussing URIs and XML prior to discussing 
RDF, and this seems to work OK.

--Frank

Frank Manola wrote:

> I agree with Dan.  It may be necessary for "official reasons" to include 
> these statements, but it seems to me they could go at the end.  As part 
> of the core "primer" material, it might be reasonable to include some 
> discussion about the relationship of the material in the Primer to the 
> actual specs, expressed in normal English (i.e., not using terms like 
> "normative").
> 
> --Frank
> 
> 
> Dan Connolly wrote:
> 
>> Eric Miller wrote:
>>
>>> v 0.1 of RDF Primer scope, outline and open issues is available for 
>>> comments.
>>>
>>> http://www.w3.org/2001/09/rdfprimer/
>>> $Id: Overview.html,v 1.6 2001/09/25 21:08:40 em Exp $
>>>
>>
>>
>> Hmm...
>>   "RDF Primer is a non-normative document ..."
>>
>> I'd like to nip this sort of tone in the bud.
>>
>> I'd rather the first sentences in the document were something
>> light and energetic like...
>>
>>     RDF is a nifty technology for integrating all sorts of stuff...
>>     for getting the computers to acutally help solve problems,
>>     rather than just shuttling them between people.
>>
>>     If you're new to RDF, or you have been put off
>>     by all the stilted language-lawyer-ese RDF documentation,
>>     this document is for you!
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 


-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-875

Received on Wednesday, 26 September 2001 09:37:50 UTC