[tdwg-tag] RDF N3

[Roderic Page]

Roger,


On 25 Jan 2010, at 08:52, Roger Hyam wrote:

> I think RDF/XML as a default return syntax is fine but Turtle  
> definitely has its place.
>
> Just my thoughts (rants)
>
> Roger
>
> (Rod. You must be writing brittle code if you rely on document  
> structure (XPaths) to pull stuff out of RDF/XML because the syntax  
> could change any time.)


Brittle is the only kind of code I know ;) Given that most RDF in our  
field is flat, and the namespaces are well documented, RDF/XML   
doesn't strike me as more brittle. Any consuming code will have to  
change if the vocabulary changes, for example.

Rod




>
>
> On 24 Jan 2010, at 11:51, Roderic Page wrote:
>
>> I agree with Kevin. XML may be verbose, but there are lots of tools  
>> for processing it, virtually none for N3.
>>
>> For example, if I harvest RDF by resolving a LSID, I can use XPath  
>> to extract the bits I'm interested in, and programming languages  
>> such as PHP support this out of the box. Likewise for providers,  
>> there are tools that ensure the XML being output is valid.
>>
>> Personally, if you're looking for an alternative to XML, N3 isn't  
>> the answer (that'd be JSON).
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Rod
>>
>> On 24 Jan 2010, at 02:25, Kevin Richards wrote:
>>
>>> I like the sound of the 'compactness' of the format, but I worry  
>>> that there is a lack of tools that support the format (ie  
>>> browsers, mainly). It is quite nice to naturally navigate the rdf  
>>> world with a standard browser.  But for transfer standards, I  
>>> suppose this wouldn't matter.
>>>
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>> Sent from my HTC
>>>
>>> ----- Reply message -----
>>> From: "Bob Morris" <morris.bob at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Sun, Jan 24, 2010 12:08 PM
>>> Subject: [tdwg-tag] RDF N3
>>> To: "Technical Architecture Group mailing list" <Tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org 
>>> >
>>>
>>> Let's make N3 be the recommended RDF representation. It is way more
>>> compact and human readable than RDF/XML.  We could even specify a
>>> normative conversion tool if necessary.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Robert A. Morris
>>> Professor of Computer Science (nominally retired)
>>> UMASS-Boston
>>> 100 Morrissey Blvd
>>> Boston, MA 02125-3390
>>> Associate, Harvard University Herbaria
>>> email: ram at cs.umb.edu
>>> web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
>>> web: http://etaxonomy.org/FilteredPush
>>> http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
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>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> Roderic Page
>> Professor of Taxonomy
>> DEEB, FBLS
>> Graham Kerr Building
>> University of Glasgow
>> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>>
>> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
>> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
>> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>

---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
DEEB, FBLS
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html






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