Re: silly question about rdf:about

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
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Received on Sunday, 7 April 2002 23:18:21 UTC