Re: Linkbases, Topic Maps,and RDF Knowledge Bases -- help me understand, please

[uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com]

> In fact, with a little will, both could be merged. For instance. an RDF
> expression refer to a particular resource by
>
> <rdf:description about="http://www.talvastudio.com">
>
> and includes a list of properties.
>
> What about the following thing:
>
> <mylink xlink:type="extended" etc...>
> <myresource xlink:type="locator" xlink:href=""http://www.talvastudio.com">
> .... a list of property elements about this resource ....
> </myresource>
> </mylink>

You and Eve seem to be taking the most trivial use of RDF and generalizing
it to death.

Of course simple directed arcs can be represented as XLinks, but how do
you conveniently deal with such useful RDF constructs as

Reification
Classes/Schema Constraints
Anonymous resource handling
RDF XML serialization flexibility

And such not-so-useful constructs as

parse-type
about-each and about-each-prefix
RDF XML serialization flexibility ;-)

To give a very short list

> You would have then a semantic link. A link that includes some meta
> information about a resource. You kill two birds at the same time. The link
> could be interpreted by a plain xlink engine. Or this could also be
> intrepreted a collection of resources each resource having some meta
> information. A merge of Topic maps concepts and RDF concept. The solution is
> not too far. The only problem though is will and politics :-)

Disagree.  I have spent a fair amount of time working over XTM, and I'm
convinced, for purely technical reasons (because I could use Topic Maps
with no political problems) that XTM is problematic for my needs, though I
can see where it is useful.

The key thing is that RDF is at a lower level than XTM, and I think a
merger would be a serious confusion of paradigms.

-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Principal Consultant
uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com               +1 303 583 9900 x 101
Fourthought, Inc.                         http://Fourthought.com
4735 East Walnut St, Ste. C, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA
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