Comments for WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20030123

Here are minor editorial comments for your "RDF/XML Syntax
Specification (Revised)" Last Call Working Draft [1] to use or not, as
you see fit.

"This" is one of Degener's dangerous words:
http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing/words.html
     If you start a sentence with Here, This, or There, you usually end
     up talking about the document rather than the subject.
Applied here, you can repeat terms in place of demonstrative pronouns.

Words in the headings and TOC can be capitalized, for example "Table of
Contents" and "An XML Syntax for RDF" and "Container Membership
Property Elements - rdf:li and rdf:_n" and "RDF MIME Type, File
Extension and Macintosh File Type."

In the inline CSS, s/align/text-align/ (align is invalid)

The example headings could use a few pixels of padding or a margin.

RFC 2119 key words could be marked up like this:
http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#RFCs

The grammar CSS is nicely done.

It is unnecessary to make every occurrence of a term a link (for
example, "RDF URI Reference" is a link 43 times in section 2).

Excuse the case corrections below. Caps give a term no special status
and sometimes detract. What matters is the case in the formal definition.

typos, some global:
s/URis/URIs/
s/explictly/explicitly/
s/RDF Datatyping with Typed Literals/RDF datatyping with typed literals/
s/Blank Nodes/blank nodes/
s/Nodes/nodes/
s/working draft/Working Draft/
s/RDF Graph/RDF graph/
s/the original RDF/XML grammar/the original RDF grammar/
s/Information Items/information items/
s/RDF/XML syntax (this document)/RDF/XML Syntax (this document)/
s/Subject Node, Property Arc and Object Node/subject node, property 
arc and object node/
s/RDF URI Reference/RDF URI reference/
s/RDF Literals/RDF literals/
s/Blank Node Identifier/Blank Node identifier/
s/Arc/arc/
s/Plain Literal/plain literal/
s/Node Elements and Property Elements/node elements and property elements/
s/XML Literals/XML literals/
s/beginning a:Box/beginning a:Box./
s/Typed Literals/typed literals/
s/intending to be interpreted as a/to be interpreted as a/
s/Document Information Item/document information item/
s/Internet Media Type/Internet media type/
s/(RFC-3023)/[RFC-3023]/
s/Draft[RDF-MIMETYPE-ID]/Draft [RDF-MIMETYPE-ID]/
s/XML Namespace/XML namespace/
s/section section/section/
s/an RDF URI References/an RDF URI reference/
s/Base URI/base URI/
s/Events/events/
s/This sequence of events formed/The sequence these events form/
s/well formed/well-formed/
s/recognised/recognized/
s/Set[INFOSET]/Set [INFOSET]/
s/them. and/them and/
s/property document-element/property [document element]/
s/MIME Type/MIME type/
s/Approaches[RDF-IN-XHTML]/Approaches [RDF-IN-XHTML]/
s/RDF Namespace/RDF namespace/

In 5.1, "RDF Namespace URI Reference" can safely read "RDF namespace
URI reference."

Does the RDF series need to define "arc"? The original RDF syntax says
quite a lot: "directed labeled graphs (also called 'nodes and arcs
diagrams')" and defines arc in its glossary as "A representation of a
property in a graph form; specifically the edges in a directed labeled
graph." The new Concepts and Syntax specs mention yet do not seem to
define arc.

     5 XML elements of two types
can read:
     five XML elements of two types

     3 times for the three nodes
can read:
     three times for the three nodes

     2 property elements
can read:
     two property elements

XML Schema can be a reference, and "W3C XML Schema datatype int" can
link to that.

I think you can omit 2.18 and move this sentence to the introduction:
     For a longer introduction to the RDF/XML striped syntax with a
     historical perspective, see RDF: Understanding the Striped RDF/XML
     Syntax [STRIPEDRDF].

s/Registration Note: The RDF Core Working Group will register this
type/Registration Note: The RDF Core Working Group plans to register
this type/

Section 4 speaks of "RDF." "XML serialization of RDF" or "RDF/XML"
might make more sense.

This sentence:
     RDF URI References (RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax Section 3.1)
     can be either given as XML attribute values interpreted as absolute
     RDF URI References, XML attribute values interpreted as relative
     URI References that are resolved with the in-scope base URI as
     described in section section 5.3 to give absolute RDF URI
     References, transformed from XML Namespace-qualified element and
     attributes names (QNames) or transformed from rdf:ID and rdf:bagID
     attribute values.
could be a list:
     RDF URI References (RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax Section 3.1)
     can be either:
     * given as XML attribute values interpreted as absolute RDF URI
       references
     * XML attribute values interpreted as relative URI references that
       are resolved with the in-scope base URI as described in section 5.3
       to give absolute RDF URI references
     * transformed from XML Namespace-qualified element and attributes names
       (QNames)
     * transformed from rdf:ID and rdf:bagID attribute values

"defined in Section 5.3 Resolving URIs" needs an ending period. Same
for "rdf-id production" in 5.4.

In 5.3, tests appeared unannounced. Are these from Test Cases? Will they
be in Syntax in the next draft?

In 6, all of the names of information items can be lowercase.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20030123/

Best wishes for your project,
-- 
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@w3.org               tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

Received on Wednesday, 26 February 2003 02:45:41 UTC