- From: R.V.Guha <guha@guha.com>
- Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 20:15:47 -0700
- To: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com>
- CC: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>, www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Uche, If you are proposing that rdf:about is just a convenience that we might as well do without, then what you are proposing that every node in rdf (including property types) become blank/anonymous nodes. N3 does use rdf:about, only implicitly. guha Uche Ogbuji wrote: > > > > 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 23:18:21 UTC