- From: Charles F. Munat <chas@munat.com>
- Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 22:43:38 -0700
- To: "RDF Interest" <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
Murray Altheim wrote: "The difficulty with external links is first of all management. If you have 1000 documents you'd have 1000 metadata files. It's a lot simpler to add the markup into the document, a lot easier to be sure you've got the right metadata, and spiders can obtain the data directly. I also think it'll be a lot easier for authors and braindead tools. Documents will also remain rather portable. "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." I reply: First, I did not say that embedding RDF was a bad idea. I want to eat my cake and have it too. But I don't think that we should rule out the linked metadata idea. For one thing, I think it will probably be easier to implement. Second, as Seth has pointed out, it might be more flexible. Third, despite what Murray suggests, every byte counts. I have spent time trying to trim an additional 200 or 300 bytes off a GIF. I generally use the thumb rule 1K = 1 second, and every second counts. Metadata with an abstract or summary might easily run to 2K or more. Additionally, I use a database to serve most of my sites. I also have an application that allows my clients to update their own pages without knowing any code. When they update the page, it prompts them for the metadata. The metadata is currently served with the page, but I could just as easily make it available otherwise. I could also rewrite the scripts to serve the metadata in the page, as a linked page, or visibly in the page, depending on user preference or browser type. It's all very flexible and easy to do. Finally, I don't care much about Dublin Core. Oh, I use it, but I envision much more detailed metadata used with all sorts of data and/or services. DC is useful only for certain types of documents. For others, it might turn out that the metadata is larger than some of the data with which it is associated. So I still think the linked metadata is a good idea and a good first move. But yes, I want to be able to embed it, too, and to still have valid documents. Charles Munat, Seattle, Washington
Received on Tuesday, 17 April 2001 01:45:48 UTC