Re: same-syntax extensions to RDF

>     Just to set the record straight. No, RDF was not hatched 
> as just a metadata format. 

Sorry, poor word choice again.   I meant hatched out of W3C, not
hatched in your mind and minds of other contributors. 

The front-page announcement from the week ending 26 February 1999:

   W3C Issues Recommendation for Resource Description Framework (RDF)

   The Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax
   specification is the result of cross-industry and expert agreement
   on a wide range of features for using and providing metadata on the
   Web.  

And of course, the working group was supported by the "Metadata
Activity", and the names "Meta Content Framework" and "Resource
Description Framework" are rather, um, suggestive of metadata
applications.

All that said, my point was just that that metadata applications are
fairly important to some orginal and probably core constituent users
of RDF.  Also, that that metadata applications are likely to evoke
problems of looping reference in any system, whether it uses RDF or
not.

Would you disagree with any of that?

> It was a simple data model which 
> could be used for a wide range of *instance* data. See [1]. 

I'm not sure what distinction you're making.  The first MCF diagram
has domain and range constraints mixed in with an Author arc.

It says

      This self-description allows MCF to be its own schema definition
      language. This in turn allows MCF to be dynamically extended by
      an author or application. 

I think that's great, but that's not "instance" data as I usually hear
the term.

> This infatuation with reducing everything to RDF is at best 
> amusing.

Really?

Don't you find it useful that so much can be stated in RDF?  I find
RDF data very nice to work with. 

> guha
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-MCF-XML/

    -- sandro

Received on Thursday, 30 December 2004 18:42:04 UTC