[Tdwg-guid] Which TCS/RDF?

"Döring, Markus" m.doering at BGBM.org
Thu Sep 28 17:34:36 CEST 2006


Rod,
I am not saying a service should provide different formats. I was simply curious to know what the LSID specs suggest. I couldn't recall a discussion on what format would be most useful for clients.

Markus


-----Original Message-----
From: tdwg-guid-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:tdwg-guid-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
Sent: Donnerstag, 28. September 2006 15:50
To: Döring, Markus
Cc: tdwg-guid at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Tdwg-guid] Which TCS/RDF?


I'm, struggling a little to see why this is an issue. Surely a provider  
would aim to serve the format that is most use to consumers -- in which  
case, RDF/XML seems the obvious choice to me, given the availability of  
tools for handling XML (including web browsers).

Translating RDF/XML into alternative formats would simply require a XSL  
style sheet. For example, I use XSL to transform RDF into colour-coded  
XML, and HTML in my LSID tester. It should be trivial to convert  
RDF/XML into N-triple, for example. If consumers need N-triples, they  
can do the translation at their end. There are examples of this here  
http://www.semanticplanet.com/library/Main/RdfToTriplesStylesheet and  
here http://www.w3.org/2001/12/rubyrdf/xsltrdf/README.html.

Why not keep things simple? Providers serve the most generally useful  
format, and consumers massage that if necessary.

Regards

Rod


On 28 Sep 2006, at 11:49, Döring, Markus wrote:

> Roger,
> I was rather thinking about different ways of serializing RDF. RDF/XML
> is just one way of expressing RDF and I would like to know if LSIDs  
> (or TDWG) specifies that RDF/XML should be used. If a service is free  
> to pick, a RDF framework, in contrast to templates, could probably  
> easily return different formats for the same RDF graph.
>  
> Markus
>  
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: rogerhyam at googlemail.com [mailto:rogerhyam at googlemail.com] On
>> Behalf Of Roger Hyam
>> Sent: Donnerstag, 28. September 2006 11:53
>> To: Döring, Markus
>> Cc: Steve Perry; peter.hollas at thomson.com;  
>> tdwg-guid at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: Re: [Tdwg-guid] Which TCS/RDF?
>>
>> Hi Markus,
>>
>> The LSID spec suggests that RDF is the default return type but you
>> can request different formats. We would just need to agree on names  
>> for the formats.
>>
>> Thinking from a clients point of view consistency is the most
>> important thing I guess especially if the data is going to be mixed  
>> with data from other sources. It would be far easier to write a  
>> client to handle just RDF than to handle RDF plus arbitrary other  
>> formats  - perhaps with a plug in infrastructure etc etc.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Roger
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/28/06, "Döring, Markus" <m.doering at bgbm.org> wrote: Hi,
>>> I was wondering if the LSID specs require you to return RDF/XML.
>>> Could a service also return (or even request?) Turtle, N-Triple,  
>>> RDFa or whatever comes next year?
>>>
>>> It would be costly to switch formats using a templating system, so I
>>> am just curious.
>>>
>>> Markus
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: tdwg-guid-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>>> [mailto:tdwg-guid-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Steve  
>>> Perry
>>> Sent: Dienstag, 26. September 2006 18:12
>>> To: peter.hollas at thomson.com
>>> Cc: tdwg-guid at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>>> Subject: Re: [Tdwg-guid] Which TCS/RDF?
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Peter,
>>>
>>> I was just writing a response to your question about Jena, but I'll 
>>> scrap it now.  Unfortunately there's no standard representation for
>>> TCS
>>> in RDF at this time.  Hopefully there will be one in the near future.
>>>
>>> Jena is well suited to consuming RDF metadata, but I agree with you
>>> that
>>> it's a bit heavyweight if all you want to do is produce many  
>>> instances
>>> of a single class.
>>>
>>> Visualizing the problem as one of templating and using Spring MVC is
>>> a
>>> neat approach.  I use Spring mostly for dependency injection and  
>>> hadn't
>>> considered that it might be used to isolate this kind of software  
>>> from
>>> changes in the schema.
>>>
>>> -Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> peter.hollas at thomson.com wrote:
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > Could someone advise on which TCS/RDF ontology would be the best 
>>> > to implement for metadata coming from nomenclatural sources such 
>>> > as ZooBank? I've yet to come across anything other than a TCS XML
>>> Schema
>>> > in public circulation.
>>> >
>>> > I've decided to do away with using the Jena API altogether for 
>>> > returning metadata responses from ZooBank; it seems to be rather
>>> heavy
>>> > handed approach to returning what is basically a simple structured 
>>> > text document. A much more flexible way to go is with a page 
>>> > templating system, especially when the schemata are in constant
>>> flux.
>>> > A Spring Framework MVC/JSTL endpoint will allow for schemata
>>> changes
>>> > to be implemented without recompilation. The LSID metadata class
>>> will
>>> > just act as a façade/decorator to the templating system.
>>> >
>>> > Many thanks, Peter.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > TDWG-GUID mailing list
>>> > TDWG-GUID at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
>>> > http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-guid
>>> >
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------
>> Roger Hyam
>> Technical Architect
>> Taxonomic Databases Working Group
>> -------------------------------------
>> http://www.tdwg.org
>> roger at tdwg.org
>> +44 1578 722782
>> -------------------------------------
>>
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------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
----------------------------------------
Professor Roderic D. M. Page
Editor, Systematic Biology
DEEB, IBLS
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QP
United Kingdom

Phone:    +44 141 330 4778
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email:    r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
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