- From: Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:02:42 +0100
- To: "Sergey Melnik" <melnik@db.stanford.edu>, "RDF Core" <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
> > a) a character string > b) a word in a natural language > c) an XML tree > d) an abstract structure that consists of a string, > a tag, and a bit. > > Choice d) seems ugly if we think of RDF as a foundation for the SW. If > we go for a)-c), then the literals become polymorphic... My understanding was we went for (d) as best reflecting the past (M&S) not as the best basis for the future (SW). I think there are many issues for which we might want to say that the past is not the ideal basis for the future. But the past is non-optional. > (2) Extensibility > The language tags keep evolving. How do we accommodate new language > encoding schemes gracefully? The language tags are a dynamic set. There are mailing lists that tell you of the changes. There are well-defined update procedures. We can have a generic dependency on xml:lang, which in turn has a generic dependency on RFC 3066 which in turn has a generic dependency on ISO639 and ISO3166. IMO this will have a long enough shelf life. It makes it hard to write software that "knows" all the langauge tags, but it is only a warning message (at least in my software). I don't find Sergey's argument compelling. > In short, I think that we might be doing a bad job on literals. I think we have created a clear rearticulation of M&S. That is the job we are chartered to do. Jeremy
Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 09:02:49 UTC