RE: ANNOUNCEMENT: RDFStyles: alternative to XSLT for RDF

Listening to the discussion I see that we need some real world examples
where such a RDFstyle engine would be fine.

I have one example:

- I converted data from similiar sources into a big repository. The
repository can be "browsed" by a knowledge managemt tool that is
programmed as a java servlet and runs in a webbrowser. I use this "local
website" to browse the data.

When programming the output of a resource, I did two things:
- Select the ConciseBoundaryResourceDescription (as suggested by URIQA)
- Format this using some java code, I didn't even use JSP as it was
easier with JEna directly.

->> RDF style would come in handy in application integration websites,
that show data from different sources as the StlyeSheets may be selected
based on the rdf:type of the resource.
Example: Have a "nice" style for FOAF:person and one for
DublinCore:document.


But for this example I can use normal XSLT enhanced with RDF/PATH. The
stylesheets may be stored in any wanted way.


> For the RDF processor an XSL template is just a literal or an external
> resource. This may not be a problem in many cases, but having 
> the styles
> in rdf allows to:

> - - deliver a speicific style for rendering the result of a 
> query without
> unneeded templates

I don't get it.



> - - use an optimized triple store instead of parsing text

the best representation for a style would be some Object instances in a
programming language, like a parser/lexer / symbols etc.
I don'T think that a triple store is that "optimized".

> - - write content and style using the same syntax and tools

What tool exactly are you talking about ?
most RDF editors I have seen are really "bad", it takes much longer to
write some RDF than any other thing. I refer to 
*OntoEdit
*Protege 
*Infered

To create styles as you described, I would say they are "less then
useful".

The best way to write a XSLT stylesheet is XMLSpy, thats what I have
experienced in projects. The better way would be some WYSIWYG tool.

So I think you will have to write a special editor for such a
Style-expressed-in-rdf thing, or you create a special syntax that is
easier to write than RDF/XML.

> - - multiple styles can be used to generate one output 
> without the styles
> having to know/import each other

That is a very good point.

I think of some engine, where you have data at one store and
ontology/style in another store.
Then to output things, you just call the formatting thing based on the
style-store and pass it a submodel of the data.

Received on Saturday, 25 October 2003 12:06:08 UTC