RE: initial RDF Primer Working Draft

First of all let me express my delight at the release of this material
within the 'RDF Suite' of documents. Various folks have written good intros
over the past year or two, (you know who you are) but to have such material
within the central documentation I believe is a big step forward. I also
believe this is quality material - good purpose, good material - I'm obliged
to give it some crit :

*** Abstract - this is the bit I like least. The problem with RDF adoption
IMHO is that it is too easily seen as 1. being hard work; 2. offering
nothing new -

"I don't need it at work (unlike xml schema) and it looks bloody complicated
(like xml schema)...so...can it sing?"

The interesting bits get sidelined into '...information can may be made
available for to applications other than those for which it was originally
created.' This is a little misleading and gives the impression that you have
to hack to benefit. This could perhaps be worded more to make clear that
this is information laid bare, to whatever agent can make use of it. Which
is a point - some mention of agents/browsers might make the reader get a
better idea of the 'why?' : the idea of the Semantic Web should come in
early!

*** Introduction - minor quibble, "...RDF can be used to represent
information about anything that can be identified on the Web...", again I
would say a bit misleading - later it it says "...RDF links can refernece
any identifiable things..." (sic) which is a bit more like it, but I'd drop
'links can'. Myself I've not been keeping track as much as I should, but
"The complete specification of RDF consists of..." - contains or doesn't
contain the current RDF Rec?, ok, things have moved on but clarification is
essential.

*** 2. Making Statements About Resources - "RDF is intended to provide a
simple way to state properties of (facts about) Web resources..."
- well, does the resource have to be on the web or not?

First time through I wasn't sure about the treatment of URL/URI, but on
second reading I like it a lot. Also ns treatment.

@@I wouldn't worry about the section segue - it works as it stands
@@frag ids - hmm - rather you than me...

*** 2.2 Last paragraph seems a bit clunky - perhaps just throw in another
example?

@@Don't think it needs any more about ns here


*** 2.3 sometime near Fig.1 - it might be an idea pointing out that a graph
is a blob & arrow thing in this context, not everyone done maths.

N-Triples explanation, nice. But what's the N for?

just below fig. 3 - a synonym for predicates in braces maybe, just in
case...

*** 2.4 - is the syntax :

_:johnaddress

really ugly, or is it just me? (ok I confess, I think N3 looks like the
aftermath of an ant battle)

RDF Schema - mentioned, but a bit too briefly IMHO, a sentence or so more
would be good.

*** 3. Striping is *good* (the Brickley I think to thank there for exposing
it)

tools - I'd be tempted to leave these to an appendix, including links at the
end (personally I think GraphViz is great as a short-term thing, but it's
too far removed from any RDF API to be that useful once things go deeper,
man...)


it's @@-ed already, RSS definitely should get good coverage (perhaps the
most used app?) also ODP/DMOZ should be mentioned, and that muzic thing

Semantic Web stuff should start in the intro...

*** 6.1 etc - very nice, good to have the idea of an MT etc presented in lay
terms

---------

Lacking - positive (even blue-sky) enthusiastic 'potential of this'; mention
of agents/browsers; mention by constrast of xml/xml schema (including
typing); somewhere (probably late on with the RDFS stuff) the ontology thang
has to be talked about; ability to integrate HTML-RDF, SVG-RDF etc.

Final minor points - should Web be capitalised this way? (or even replaced
with WWW to avoid confusion with Knuth's thing);
do you have access to a spell checker?

------

Altogether great stuff anyways.
Keep up the good work.

Cheers,
Danny.


---
Danny Ayers
<stuff> http://www.isacat.net </stuff>


>-----Original Message-----
>From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
>[mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Frank Manola
>Sent: 21 March 2002 22:43
>To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
>Subject: initial RDF Primer Working Draft
>
>
>The initial Working Draft of the RDF Primer has been published at
>http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-primer-20020319/  This represents an
>attempt to provide a more tutorial introduction to RDF than can be
>presented in the detailed specifications.  There is much work to do on
>it, but hopefully it represents a good starting point.
>
>Please send any comments to www-rdf-comments@w3.org
>
>--Frank
>
>--
>Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
>202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
>mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-8752
>

Received on Saturday, 23 March 2002 18:01:17 UTC