Re: RDF syntax 'improvements'? - was RE: [Fwd: xmlns, uri+name pairs or just uris..? Clarification needed.]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2000, Perry A. Caro wrote:

> Lee,
> 
> If you look back at the archives, you'll see a long series of messages about
> simplifying the RDF syntax.  The most radical proposal was to reduce the RDF
> serialization to simple statements, like:
> 
> <srdf:Statement prop="title" res="...URI">Literal Value</srdf:Statement>
> <srdf:Statement prop="creator" value="#id001" res="...URI"/>
> <srdf:Statement prop="rdf:_1" res="id001">Author 1</srdf:Statement>
> <srdf:Statement prop="rdf:_2" res="id001">Author 2</srdf:Statement>
> <srdf:Statement prop="rdf:type" value="rdf:Bag" res="id001"/>
> 
> etc.  There were several other proposals, including one from Tim
> Berners-Lee.
> 
> The silence may be a way of saying, "Been there, done that." :-)

Seems a shame if we've all got tired of the discussion without actually
finishing an alternative serialisation spec. There are lots of issues,
eg. above you use qnames inside attribute values. Also the issue of how to
identify anonymous/transient nodes in such a way as to not confuse
generated IDs with 'proper' URIs.

I keep finding myself re-inventing variants on the above syntax (for
quickie Perl / Javascript work), sometimes just using tab-separated data
structures. This suggests to me that a writeup of such a syntax would be a handy
thing to have.

I'd be interested to hear whether a (say) W3C Note specifying such a
simple lowest common denominator 'rdf dump syntax' would be useful to
implementors. My own implementation experience suggests 'yes'. Other
perspectives would be useful...

Dan

Received on Friday, 4 August 2000 21:14:43 UTC