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From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>
>> The explanations are in my previous letters on this subject.
> I don't see how those explanations have much to do with RDDL.
This thread got started with Len's *perfect*
summary letter, where he listed
"fetching knowledge from the Web" as an option.
He said "RDF". I said : "RDDL, but not the current one".
I had no desire to start discussing this 'current RDDL'
stuff in detail. I was responding to Len's letter and I (still)
believe that buzzword RDDL *is* closer to that 'fetcher',
than the buzzword RDF. Those, who want to understand
details, should read the thread from the beginning (that was
Len's letter with this subject).
However, I now need to elaborate on *current* RDDL
and I'l do that, but I would like not to talk about
*current* RDDL any longer, because I'm not interested
in current RDDL for the reasons I already explained.
Many thanks.
Elaboration follows.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Brennan" <Michael_Brennan@Allegis.com>
> > Is RDDL for 'computers' or for 'humans' ? What is the
> > real problem RDDL solves and who is using RDDL?
>
> It's for both computers and humans. It's human readable documentation,
with
> embedded machine readable links. When an application encounters an element
> in a particular namespace, if RDDL is at the end of the namespace, then
the
> application can easily locate a schema that can be used for validation,
> reference documentation, stylesheets for displaying or converting to
another
> format, or just about about any other sort of associated resource that may
> be useful.
Could you please try the:
http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform
( it's a namespace for XSLT )
Could you please tell me what ( particular ) RDDL document
would you like to place there instead of aswesome
current content?
(There is no examples in that RDDL paper. Maybe
there are, but they're hidden.)
OK, OK, I tried Google and I found one.
I've found a *perfect* article by Elliotte Rusty Harold
telling, what RDDL is. It has an example of actual
RDDL file. (When looking at RDDL file itself,
note verbosity and cut&paste - not because
the author is a moron. It is because of RDDL design.
Beloved W3C's style )
http://xml.oreilly.com/news/xmlnut2_0201.html#code
When I see :
"This rddl:resource element points to a Cascading style sheet (CSS) for
recipes:"
It is obvious for me that RDDL is a joke. Like it is
possible to have just one XSLT stylesheet for all
recipes!
It is not even possible to have a single CSS
for a receipe, because when receipe becomes
a *part* of *another* document - the CSS
would usually change, so this 'CSS for recipes' would
not work (but would make some extra trouble)
So ?
**********
The whole idea of namespaces was to support the
*mixes* of 'receipes' with 'something else'
**********
RDDL is plain working *against* the original goal.
Current RDDL is a misleading paper,
published on the web and resulting in
journalists who are calling *me* so that *I* would
explain the value of RDDL to them. (True story) .
I'm listed as one of contributors. Not that I have
any problem with that. When being asked
about RDDL I just tell that they're
better to talk to somebody else about it.
> The prevailing model of relying upon an instance containing a
> "schemaLocation" attribute to locate a schema, and an "xml-stylesheet" to
> locate an appropriate stylesheet, and other associated PIs, attributes,
> and/or links for each and every relevant resource has obvious problems.
'Appropriate' stylesheet is a very questionable entity.
There is no 'appropriate' stylsheet that fits all
possible 'future' situations for some 'tag'.
So is 'Appropriate' Schema.
> > To me, RDDL is just a nice looking paper, responding to
> > the fact that there 'could be something at the end of
> > namespace URI'.
> >
> > Problem 'what will be at the and of namespace URI'
> > is still neither solved, nor addressed and it is also
> > orthogonal to 'how can we make XML self-describing'.
>
> I'm steering clear of that whole "self-describing" thread. I agree with
> Michael Kay's remark on this. The whole self-describing thing just leads
to
> unresolvable paradoxes. (I think it was Michael Kay who posted that. I
can't
> find the post, now.) RDDL can, however, permit an application to locate
> schemas and human readable documentation for an XML grammar based on its
> namespace. I think that is about the best we can get.
Oh, come on. Locating Schema would give almost nothing,
(if all you have in your document is something that
conforms to 'The Single True Schema' - don't use namespaces
at all! You need no namespaces!).
So what we need is to find some documentation about some
set of tags? Just publish the human readable document at the
end of namespace URI ;-)
Like W3C does for XSLT Namespace ;-)
> > The explanations are in my previous letters on this subject.
> >
> > I believe that it would be better for me to disappear from
> > this thread now.
>
> Well, I won't try to keep you in this thread any further, but I could not
> resist making a quick comment on this.
And I could not resist answering ( I think that in the
future I would consider this letter to be a mistake,
but whatever ).
Now I really stop. I think that those, who wanna know
what is that RDDL thing and what value is in RDDL -
they should not read the RDDL document, but should read
the article mentioned above.
In my opinion, RDDL is a joke. For 'human' - who
cares about anything better, than HTML page?
The *real* problem is how to make
*computers* to cooperate with each other,
in a sense, that my computer 'cooperates' with
some computer in Macromedia, when MS IE
fetches the Macromedia plugin, when
encountering an 'unknown tag'.
If this sounds too simple, one may think about
'ppm install XML-Parser' or
perl -MCPAN -e shell
Current RDDL is irrelevant for this 'real' problem.
The problem, which is 'solved' by RDDL
is too hypothetical to be of a serious value
and as a bonus it contradicts the basic design
idea of 'namespaces'!
No more letters from me on RDDL. Some people
use it. This is fine, but when I've used the word RDDL,
I was *not* talking about current RDDL ( neither was
Len talking about current RDF, I think ), I'm very sorry
to use the RDDL buzzword and I would try never use
it again.
Rgds.Paul.
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