Re: The Tragedy of RSS

In a message dated 10/4/2002 3:28:47 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
n.paskin@doi.org writes:
> It breaks if
> stretched to deal with complex metadata (description) problems: see  
> Keeping
> Dublin Core Simple;  Cross-Domain Discovery or Resource Description? by 
> Carl
> Lagoze at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january01/lagoze/01lagoze.html
> 

Hi Norman,

Interesting paper... from your paper, this expresses the sentiment of my
original email well...
"While RDF offers real promise as a general model for Web metadata, it is 
still in a state of flux, its acceptance is far from widespread, and related 
software tools are rudimentary. At this point in time, it would be unwise to 
base general principles of Dublin Core, which should be deployable now, on 
particular capabilities of RDF."

Except replacing Dublin Core with RSS and WSDL.  The point being that it
has this "half-baked" kind of feel (to put it in technical terms ;)

Another great point in the paper:
"Metadata is expensive to create -- especially the more complex varieties -- 
and the benefits need to be weighed against the costs. As Bill Arms suggests, 
simple low-cost metadata may be the most efficient strategy for addressing 
many resource discovery needs."  

My customer is extremely sensitive to this and they are deathly afraid of 
going down a blind alley.  Because of that they are demanding a strong 
cost/benefit equation ... in DOD circles, technical hype has a bad 
reputation.
They've heard a thousand times how technology X will save the world.

Good paper,

 - Mike
----------------------------------------------------
Michael C. Daconta
Director, Web & Technology Services
www.mcbrad.com