Re: [namespaceDocument-8] RDF and RDDL

> Thus, putting the RDF in the XHTML header seems the
> optimal way to go.

As the author of many, many, RDF-in-XHTML proposals, I submit
that this apporach is distasteful because it makes validation
basically impossible. Furthermore, AFAIK it is XHTML and XHTML
alone that can decide the meaning of any externally namespaced
material embedded within it, and so changes may need to be made
to the XHTML specification. Also, I can see these documents being
served as text/html, which would raise many issues (such as the
fact that RDF IDs would be useless according to the MIME type
draft).

OTOH, what are namespaces for if not to embed bits of languages
in other languages? There is also an approach that can help one
get round the validation problem:-

   * Remove the parts that you can't validate, using XSLT.
   * Validate the remainder.

But the issue of language mixing is long and complicated: how
would one specify in the document that you have you apply a
transformation first before you validate it? I assume one would
use a PI for that: "if you're a validator, remove this junk; if
not, parse and process this junk!". I smell a hack.

--
Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
@prefix : <http://purl.org/net/swn#> .
:Sean :homepage <http://purl.org/net/sbp/> .

Received on Monday, 8 April 2002 06:45:10 UTC