RE: Semantics permathread (was Re: Categories for atom?)

["Shelley Powers" <shelleyp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> This has proven to be enough semantics for pretty much every widely
> adopted real-world application, um, ever.  Including most FOAF files
> I've seen in the wild, which contain such simple semantics that they
> could just as easily be represented as key-value pairs in an INI file.
>

The point with FOAF and other vocabularies that are seemingly simple isn't
that there aren't other representations that can't be used, but that each of
the representations is based on a model that allows them to be used
together.

If FOAF and this syndication feed and any future RDF vocabulary that comes
along never get combined, and there will never be an interest in combinging
them, then I suppose you don't need to go with anything other than a
_syntax_ like XML.

But if there's a possibility of wanting to incorporate RDF/XML vocabularies
such as FOAF, and it takes only a few simple tweaks to make this format
compatible, wouldn't it be worth a consideration?

> Heading off the inevitable "oh but it's really all about the data model
> and there's this edge case that can only be expressed if the data model
> is RDF and you might want to do that..."  Well, we don't.  We talked
> about it on the wiki ages ago, and the overwhelming consensus (even from
> die-hard RDF advocates like Norman Walsh) was that RDF is overkill for
> this application.
>
> http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/MultipleSyntaxDiscussion
> http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/RdfAndEcho
>
> -Mark

We changed our minds. We've learned, and looked, and we changed our minds.
We saw what Aaron and Sam came up with and that there was a possibility that
the XML could be kept simple enough even for those people who automatically
reject RDF as soon as they see the enclosing tags.

We watched the discussions at Jon Udell's on namespaces and RSS 2.0, we've
seen the interest in FOAF, we're looking at the big picture, and we're
looking at unification -- finally, unification -- and we changed our minds.
Or I should say, I changed my mind. Sorry for royal 'we'. I changed my mind.
Perhaps Norm and others will also.

I'd start a new discussion on this in the wiki, but would have no idea where
to even put it -- the old pages seem crowded. Besides, I think the
discussion is actually better here and in the weblogs.

Shelley