Re: RDFCore WG minutes for the Telecon 2002-07-12

>>>Graham Klyne said:
> At 09:42 PM 7/16/02 +0100, Dave Beckett wrote:
> >Move 6.4 into syntax - DaveB: already there, not needed.
> 
> I'd like to push back a little on this decision.
> 
> First, I note that the text concerned doesn't repeat material in the syntax 
> draft, but refers to that material.  The reason I feel the text should stay 
> here is because the syntax document (reasonably) places very heavy emphasis 
> on the process of parsing RDF, and may be inaccessible to readers who are 
> not concerned with parsing issues, yet this point may be of some concern to 
> them.  The text concerned is quite short:

The syntax doc does have sections for introducing the syntax which is
*not* related to parsing.  It takes a graph and explains how the
RDF/XML for it is built, and will cover more of the detail of the XML
syntax.  That isn't for parser writers but for explaining how the XML
syntax works, and all the little corners.

Furthermore, the later section from turning a graph to RDF/XML, also
sometimes called serialising the graph, is also not for parser writers.


> [[
> 4.3 Forming a URI reference from a Qname
> 
> The RDF/XML syntax uses QName syntax [XML-NS] to identify various 
> resources, notably RDF properties. But the RDF graph syntax contains only 
> URI references, and does not recognize QName forms.
> 
> Mostly, the handling of QNames is a matter for RDF parsers. But there are 
> some occasions where an RDF writer needs to know the correspondence between 
> QNames and URI references (e.g. when using a typed node production). The 
> mapping is described in [RDF-SYNTAX], sections 3.1.2 or 3.1.4.
> ]]

That says both too little and too much.

It doesn't explain what an RDF parser is, or what an RDF writer is.
Neither of those is mentioned in the syntax doc either - we only talk
about the graph and the rdf/xml document[infoset].   This sounds like 
RDF processing which we have avoided doing.

What are QName forms?  I prefer 'XML qnames" [citing reference in XML].

The subject of the section is "Forming a URI reference from a Qname"
but the words doesn't explain how this is done, so why is it here?
Either you should add this detail, and remove it from the syntax
document, or remove this section.

I think such XML syntax issues (graph to/from RDF/XML), and XML
qnames are best handled where the rest of the XML issues are
explained, in the RDF/XML syntax document.  These can then be linked
to the syntax grammar, examples and the appropriate test cases.

Dave

Received on Tuesday, 23 July 2002 12:37:21 UTC