Re: RDF in XHTML

Dan Brickley wrote:
[...]
> It doesn't follow from the use of LINK REL that you have to manage
> metadata on a file-per-document basis. You might point into a CGI or
> servlet (hopefully disguising this to the outside world), or autogenerate
> those files from a database managed elsewhere. I do share your bias
> towards (at least some) embedded metadata though.

Ideally, a good document management system should manage revision cycles,
author info, etc. for an author, but absent the $100K solution it's nice
to figure a way to allow a single author (or a married one for that matter)
to add metadata directly into a document using vi.

> > The argument on bandwidth seems a bit unwarranted. The amount of metadata
> > is usually pretty small, much smaller than the smallest GIF image on a
> > web page. For example, your message in my mailbox took up 1221 characters,
> > which would probably be three or four times (at least) the size of the
> > metadata in a typical XHTML document (a Dublin Core record is not very
> > big). Most GIFs are at least ten times that size.
> >
> > This is not to say that somebody shouldn't harass the HTML WG about adding
> > in a standard feature in XHTML 2.0 to link to DC metadata (or a general
> > metadata link with attribute stating a notation type of "DC").
> 
> Yes, pointing to metadata generically isn't so informative. It would be
> nice to have some mechanism for hinting at the sort of thing found at the
> other end... (hmm... doesn't XLink do this for us, allegedly.)

Yes, XLink gives us this ability. I've also thought lately about auto-
mapping this information into a topic map, just as others have had similar
ideas using RDF. In the end I think the more difficult task is embedding,
so I tend toward the tough ones first, the rest follows.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                            <mailto:altheim&#x40;eng.sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu

Received on Monday, 16 April 2001 19:37:49 UTC