RE: XML Schema vs DAML/RDF/RDFS

Are these inferences that cannot be built on using XML and schema for
everything, and then processing with XML queries?

It seems to me that often most of the use cases can be satisfied that way,
but that there are some interesting ones which can't. In working on the EARL
specification we are now considering requiring that conformant applications
can produce a particular XML syntax (which would probably be a particular
view of RDF/XML) as well as being able to handle real RDF. The idea is that
there are some things which are really RDF problems - extending the types of
results from "fail" to "nearly passes", "passes except for X", "fails except
for Y" or "completely fails" is easy in RDF, where the result can be held,
and processed if it is understood, or processed just as a type of "fails". On
the other hand there are a lot of applications that can be accomplished by
simple XML approaches - put everything in a rigid tree, so I can optimise
searching for content that passes some set of requirements.

It seems to me that it is fairly easy to convert an XML schema into RDF+etc,
but not easy to do the other way around. Is it useful to ask "why should RDF
applications not have an XML Schema"?

chaals

On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Margaret Green wrote:

  Their analyses produce results. These results are assertions. I would
  model the analytical results. There may be the potential for inferences
  to be drawn among sets of results - a form of meta-analysis, if you
  will.


  Margaret Green


  -----Original Message-----
  From: R.V.Guha [mailto:guha@guha.com]
  Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 1:24 PM
  To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
  Subject: XML Schema vs DAML/RDF/RDFS


  I was talking yesterday to a friend whose is working with
  some geologists who want to share data. They are of
  course planning on using xml and are in the process
  of writing up their xml schemas.

  They have applications that do all kinds of sophisticated analysis
  on this data. They have no need of doing the kinds of inferences
  that rdfs/daml enables. Their apps do computations that are far
  more complex and it would be easy for them to modify their
  apps to make it do the few (if any) inferential facilities rdfs/daml
  offers, if the need arises.

  I tried to make a case for  rdf/rdfs/daml, but given the
  substantially more tools available for xml/xml schema and their
  lack of interest in simple inferences, I couldn't in good faith push
  too hard for rdf/rdfs/daml.

  So, should they be using rdfs/daml? Why?

  guha


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Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2002 17:01:30 UTC