- From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com>
- Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 10:57:08 -0600
- To: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>
- cc: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> > Why is rdf:about treated as magic syntax? Wouldn't everything work > the same in the grammar if > http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#about were just another > property? I now I'm pursuing a cheap form of argument here, but I can't resist likening your statement to the old saw: why treat angle brackets as magic syntax? Why not allow the markup language to define the tag delimiters, and then we can use markup delimiters in all sorts of strange and wonderful ways? This is one of the feature flourishes that led SGML down the path to incomprehensibility, and I don't see why we have to play hocus pocus with a basic syntactic device of the RDF/XML serialization. rdf:about is nothing but a convenience for specifying the subject of multiple statements in a convenient syntax. It has no standing whatsoever in the model, or in the concept of the description. That's the way it should stay. If one doesn't like it, there is always N3. And actually, it would be nice to get a standard straight triple XML serialization for RDF. I think Jonathan Borden once posted the obvious approach. Any reason not to make this official in some way? If we had such, it would be another way to avoid distraction by serialization details. -- Uche Ogbuji Principal Consultant uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com +1 720 320 2046 Fourthought, Inc. http://Fourthought.com 4735 East Walnut St, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA XML strategy, XML tools (http://4Suite.org), knowledge management Track chair, XML/Web Services One (San Jose, Boston): http://www.xmlconference.com/
Received on Sunday, 7 April 2002 12:57:59 UTC