RDDL: Should xlink:arcrole or xlink:role be the primary way todispatch on related resources? was Re: URIs, names and well known RDDL names,

[Jonathan Borden <jborden@mediaone.net>]

Henry S. Thompson wrote:

> "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@mediaone.net> writes:
> >
> > I also agree with Jason's analysis. Practically since RDDL was
conceived,
> > I've been going back and forth on what should an arcrole vs. role be
w.r.t
> > RDDL. Indeed one morning while driving to work, I suddenly became
conviced
> > that we'd got it all wrong, and confused an arcrole for a role. At the
end
> > of the day I'd conviced myself that arcrole was fine and that was
that...
>
> But you go on to contradict what Jason, Tim and I are all saying!  See
> below.

    I would like to discuss the use of xlink:arcrole vs. xlink:role as a way
to specifify related resources in RDDL.  I will discuss the relationship
between the root namespace URI and types in a separate message.

    What I am saying is that I can see arguments for either using
xlink:arcrole as the primary resource specifier and xlink:role as secondary,
or the other way around, depending on how the situation is analyzed.

    Note that the argument I present below is dependent on my reading of Ron
Daniel's xlink2rdf w3c note: http://www.w3.org/tr/xlink2rdf ... i've cc'd
Ron and Eve Maler, to give them the opportunity to clarify or correct my
analysis, and as I've said before, I can see both sides of the argument, so
if after the arguments are presented and discussed, the group decides one
way, I will agree.

    Here is the argument for using xlink:arcrole as the 'primary' name:

    I like to work out most problems involving links by drawing a graph of
circles and arrows. Think of a RDDL document as a node which contains a set
of arrows representing links to related resources. Each of these resources
has a type.

    Using Ron's analysis, the arrow or arc connecting the document to its
related resources is named by the attribute xlink:arcrole. The xlink:role
defines another arrow between the related resource and its type.

    To me it seems most natural to have the most important, or primary way
to name a related resource as an arc from the RDDL document to the related
resource and that the xlink:arcrole be the name of this arc.

    From a software point of view, it is equally efficient either way. My
implementation works equally well if we globally substitute "role" for
"arcrole".


-Jonathan