RE: regarding rdfms-identity-anon-resources

Gabe,

> >
> >         If roundtripping of XML documents is identified as an
> RDF goal then we can
> > have a different discussion.
>
> I have always felt that round-tripping should be not only a goal but a
> requirement. It really helps to ground many discussions.

Let's define roundtrip then. The simple definition of roundtripping an XML
document is that I get _exactly_ the same XML document out that I put in. To
do this you need to either store the XML document as text or build a full
grove. Not many applications can roundtrip an XML document due to this
stringent requirement.

Perhaps you mean that there is some information in the XML document you wish
to preserve? What? Define what and you subset the XML grove. The XML Infoset
is what people think of as a 'common' base, but the XML Infoset doesn't
preserve things like: order of attributes etc. Do you wish to preserve the
order of elements? Whether an arc was derived from an element or attribute?
None of this is currently represented within the RDF model.

>
> >         The issue of child seqs being invalid XML names is by
> design! If the
> > resource _had_ a valid XML name it wouldn't be anonymous would it?
>
> If anonymity was a first class concept, ala a special variable type,
> then you wouldn't have to conflate lack of a name with it being
> anonymous.
>

I am defining 'anonymous' operationally and since anonymity _isn't_ a first
class concept then lack of a 'known name' _is equated_ with being anonymous.
This is precisely why I don't want to get into an abstract discussion of
anonymity -- I see no end in sight. If you can first persuade me that there
is a specific and practical consequence of defining 'anonymous' this way or
that way then fine. So far I see the questions simply as:

1) Can you assign this resource a URI reference for the purposes of parsing
an XML document as RDF?
2) Was the node given an explicit name? If so, what was it.

Parenthetically, child sequences _are_ useful for reconstructing element
order in documents because they are based on element order -- to the extent
that this might be helpful in roundtripping. On the other hand, at the
present time we can't even generally serialize an RDF model using the RDF
syntax so we are far far away from being able to roundtrip.

-Jonathan

Received on Saturday, 10 March 2001 15:46:46 UTC