Re: yet another simplified RDF syntax: N-triples + abreviation

Richard  H. McCullough wrote:

>>I read your paper.
>>  My gut reaction is: nice try, but it's not sufficiently 
>> English-like to make it easy for humans to read.



Thanks for your comments.  

The bracket syntax isn't aimed so much 
at the human-on-the-street  as at the technically inclined 
person for whom  a simple syntactic formulation of a simple
form of data is important (I am such a person).
The bracket+triple  syntax is based on 
just four (or so) primitives  that can be explained in a page. 
The RDF XML syntax relies on a dozen or 
more constructs whose official documentation runs to 
dozens of pages, and whose
details are easy to forget if not used every day.
The aim of bracket  are identical to that of Tim Bray's 
RPV (among others), 
but takes an approach that allows more flexible
abreviation (and therefore more concision), 
and is even simpler in terms of primitives used. 
It seemed to me that separating out the abreviation 
issue might be a helpful thing to do, and so I thought the
idea worth writing up and posting to this list.

English-like syntax, IMHO, is not usually very helpful to 
what I'm calling the technically inclined - eg, the kind of
person who might at a minimum write a line of html or Javascript.
A syntax for RDF that is truly palatable to the rest of
humanity  might end up being an important thing to have, but
isn't the main sticking point for RDF adoption at the
current stage. 


Chris Goad
cg@mapbureau.com

Received on Saturday, 23 November 2002 17:16:48 UTC