[tdwg-content] What RDF is (Was Re: Idea for Discussion, Differentiating between "type's" of identifiers)

Arlin Stoltzfus arlin at umd.edu
Wed Oct 6 19:50:39 CEST 2010


This is a very important discussion to be having, whatever list is used.

In fact, I was going to bring this discussion to the attention of  
colleagues who are not on the list, but I find that the tdwg-content  
list archive here:

   http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/

has no content after Sept 11, 2010.   The same is true for tdwg-tag.    
The discussion is going to go down the memory hole if this doesn't get  
fixed.

Arlin

On Oct 6, 2010, at 11:45 AM, Markus Döring wrote:

> I am wondering if this discussion and similar rdf, lsid topics  
> should continue on tdwg-tag rather than tdwg-content.
> We might bore quite a few people...
>
>
> On Oct 6, 2010, at 17:13, Peter DeVries wrote:
>
>> Some people might find the N3 serialization useful.
>>
>> It simply lists the subject, predicate and object followed by a  
>> period.
>>
>> It is somewhat easier to interpret, and can be easy to make. You  
>> can even create this with apps like FileMaker Pro.
>>
>> You can then take this N3 form and convert it to RDF using online  
>> tools or standard libraries.
>>
>> Many if not most of the triple / quad stores can read in the n3  
>> form directly.
>>
>> Here is an example that links a species concept to a geographical  
>> location. (in both directions)
>>
>> <http://sws.geonames.org/6255149/>  <http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/txn.owl#hasExpectationOf 
>> >  <http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/iLCOZ#Species> .
>>
>> <http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/iLCOZ#Species>  <http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/txn.owl#isExpectedIn 
>> > <http://sws.geonames.org/6255149/> .
>>
>> - Pete
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Bob Morris <morris.bob at gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Peter DeVries  
>> <pete.devries at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> I think part of the problem we are having is that people are not  
>>> recognizing
>>> how different RDF is from straight XML.
>>> ...
>>
>> It's way worse than that.  RDF is not XML at all.  RDF/XML is  
>> merely a
>> serialization of RDF  It's not even the most human readable
>> serialization. In fact it is one of the \worst/ for humans who need  
>> to
>> figure out what triples are actually in play.   It is so ubiquitous
>> only because there are more tools that can process RDF/XML than any  
>> of
>> the other RDF serialization syntaxes (syntices???).  The persistent
>> myth that human readability is an advantage of XML pretty much  
>> ignores
>> all the use cases that humans have for reading something. It's about
>> as readable as Lisp. Indeed, a Lisp loving colleague said of XML on
>> the occasion of its first W3 recommendation : "I get it.  It's Lisp
>> with pointy brackets."
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> --
>> Robert A. Morris
>> Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science
>> UMASS-Boston
>> 100 Morrissey Blvd
>> Boston, MA 02125-3390
>> Associate, Harvard University Herbaria
>> email: morris.bob at gmail.com
>> web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
>> web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
>> http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
>> phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> Pete DeVries
>> Department of Entomology
>> University of Wisconsin - Madison
>> 445 Russell Laboratories
>> 1630 Linden Drive
>> Madison, WI 53706
>> TaxonConcept Knowledge Base / GeoSpecies Knowledge Base
>> About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> _______________________________________________
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>> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>
> _______________________________________________
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-------
Arlin Stoltzfus (arlin at umd.edu)
Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST
IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD
tel: 240 314 6208; web: www.molevol.org

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