Request for syntax simplification

In our DCD proposal, http://www.w3c.org/TR/NOTE-dcd, we requested three
simplifications to the RDF syntax.

1. When inserting resources into a collection the "rdf:li" should not be
required.
     John Cowan, in his note of Ocy 10, makes the same request.
2. It should be possible to specify the collection type as an attribute of
the typed node.
3. It should be possible to add typed nodes into a collection using the
following example syntax:
    <Group rdf:order="Seq">
          <Element>InterestRate</Element>
          <Element>Amount</Element>
          <Element>Maturity</Element>
    </Group>

The first two requests were explicitly mentioned in the proposal.  The
third was conveyed to the RDF Syntax WG
by Tim Bray.

The Oct 8 draft does address 2. and the following is now legal:
<Group rdf:type="http://www.w3.org/RDF/syntax#Seq">

If XML 1.x  supports namespace prefices in values, this could be simplified
to:
 <Group rdf:type="rdf:Seq">

I am writing to reiterate our request for items 1 and 3.  In talking about
DCD with interested parties we received
a great deal of pushback on the use of RDF.  One of the reasons always
cited was the baroque syntax.

Ashok Malhotra, IBM

Received on Friday, 23 October 1998 09:10:26 UTC