Re: New Draft of TAG Finding "The Self-Describing Web"

Mark,

Thank you again for your comments.  I am working on the next draft of the 
Self-Describing Web finding, and wanted to alert you to the likely 
"disposition" of at least one of the comments that you made:

> - I'd suggest not using "application/xml" in your example in sec 2 (or
> in 4.4) because in practice it's used primarily in a non-descriptive
> way, i.e. as a catch-all for all XML content with a (non-grounded)
> presumption that the transfer semantics are indicated by the namespace
> of the root element of the document, rather than by using a more
> specific XML media type.  You may even want to mention this as an
> example of how not to be self-descriptive, and include a reference to
> the authoritative metadata finding.

In section 2, I've taken your advice, and the (as yet unpublished) draft 
text now reads:

"The link could have been to an image/jpeg picture, an 
application/atom+xml feed, or a document containing RDF in 
application/rdf+xml data."

So, the reference to application/xml has been replaced by a reference to 
ATOM.  I hope you find that to be a suitable fix.

I have not yet finished work on your other comments, but I will say that I 
intend to soften the suggestion that RDF is "the preferred" means of 
creating self-describing Web data resources.  At it's last F2F meeting, 
the TAG agreed with you and with Dave Orchard that the current text goes 
to far.

I'll look at your suggestion on 4.1 when I get to reworking that section. 
Thank you again for your comments.

Noah

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
--------------------------------------








"Mark Baker" <distobj@acm.org>
Sent by: mark@coactus.com
02/27/2008 12:22 AM
 
        To:     "noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com" <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
        cc:     www-tag@w3.org
        Subject:        Re: New Draft of TAG Finding "The Self-Describing 
Web"


That's a great start, Noah.  Some comments as I go through it ...

- I'd suggest not using "application/xml" in your example in sec 2 (or
in 4.4) because in practice it's used primarily in a non-descriptive
way, i.e. as a catch-all for all XML content with a (non-grounded)
presumption that the transfer semantics are indicated by the namespace
of the root element of the document, rather than by using a more
specific XML media type.  You may even want to mention this as an
example of how not to be self-descriptive, and include a reference to
the authoritative metadata finding.

- in section 4.1, it might be getting too detailed, but perhaps you
could mention the relative cost of deploying a new element from each
layer, justifying a best practice such as "if you can define your
extension as a new media type, prefer that over defining a new URI
scheme", etc..

- in 4.3, I'm with Dave on this, RDF shouldn't be considered
preferred.  At best it could be considered the self-descriptive
approach which is furthest along the standardization path.  Similarly,
for RDFa and GRDDL, I don't think either needs to called out except as
an example.

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.         http://www.markbaker.ca
Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies  http://www.coactus.com

Received on Tuesday, 6 May 2008 01:31:55 UTC