- From: Thomas B. Passin <tpassin@comcast.net>
- Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:20:20 -0400
- To: RDF Interest <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
[Patrick Stickler] > On 2002-06-09 23:09, "ext Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@comcast.net> wrote: > > There must be only one way to go from URI references to prefixes and back > > again. That way should be compatible with XML Namespaces. It should always > > be possible to use prefixes as aliases for a "base" URI to make it easier to > > read and write RDF/XML by hand (I say "base" in quotes to distinguish it > > from "xml:base", since the two may not turn out to be the same). After all, > > it's done all the time in N3, why not everywhere? > > > > Cheers, > > > > Tom P > > The fact is that qnames and URIs are two competing schemes for global > naming, and URIs do not support the structure and contextual semantics > defined for qnames -- therefore a fully bidirectional mapping without > loss of information is just not possible. URIs will always represent less > information than a qname. > > The solution IMO is for the RDF/XML serialization should be redone in such > a manner that *no* qnames are used to denote resources which are denoted > by URIs in the graph. I.e., do away with any need to perform a qname<>URI > mapping. Resources are ever and only identified with URIs, whether in > RDF/XML or the graph. > I think of this as a purist's approach and although I can sympathize with it, and realize that it is the easiest to get unambiguous, I think there's a real place for a capability of useful aliases. Seems to me that the namespaces ought to be able to work for that. I do agree with you this far - it ought to be possible to avoid using XML namespaces and prefixes in RDF/XML syntax if you want to. Cheers, Tom P
Received on Monday, 10 June 2002 08:21:14 UTC