RE: RDF in XHTML

<- I would second the approach that the metadata needs to live in-line in
<- the document. If we claim that magic happens and out scrapes your nice
<- metadata we are slipping backing into not having a way to do this. With
<- autogeneration (CGI/servlet) of metadata, you have a whole new set of
<- problems (e.g.,  if it is static then it can be out of sync, if it is
<- automatic there is sometimes you needed to say this one doesn't need
<- generating). Not to mention the storage of data that is already marked
<- up (say the abstact, or subject headings), should I cache or shouldn't I
<- cache.

There are definite advantages (previously described) in having the metadata
in-line. I do however think that having a generally agreed way of linking in
metadata would be very worthwhile as a stopgap until the RDF in XHTML is
resolved, *and* will be very useful to use in concert with inline metadata.

The CGI generation of metadata is good idea, but talking about it at this
stage might be counter-productive - it makes things appear more complicated
than they need to be.

Ok, let's say you want to provide metadata for the material online at
w3.org. Say 1000 pages? Take this chunk - author:TimBL, publisher:w3.org,
subject:semweb. That applies to 100 pages - 1 link to this metadata, it's
possible that most of these pages contain enough additional metadata (title
& meta tags) to distinguish them usefully.

In other words, let's have some cascading metadata.

On another line, forget XHTML for a moment, how do we embed metadata in
other XML markups?

<- And I like the test that you should be able to add it with vi (err let's
<- say emacs).

Your 'template' metadata is linked in, with vi you only need to add a couple
of specific properties to the doc in-line.

Received on Tuesday, 17 April 2001 02:29:31 UTC