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----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>
To: "Paul T" <pault12@pacbell.net>
Cc: <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] RDDL (was RE: [xml-dev] Negotiate Out The Noise)
> On Fri, 2002-01-18 at 16:26, Paul T wrote:
> > I've asked only *one* question, which is "what is RDDL for,
> > what is the real-life project you would use for?" and I got
> > no friggin answer, just stupid jokes.
>
> I'm very sorry you felt this was "no friggin answer, just stupid jokes."
>
> --http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200201/msg00856.html --
> I use RDDL to document the namespaces for my namespace filters and
> regular fragmentations:
>
> http://simonstl.com/ns/namespaces/
> http://simonstl.com/ns/fragments/
>
> The RDDL documents for Regular Fragmentations will be getting an upgrade
> shortly and I'm writing the RDDL document for Gorille presently.
>
> For me, it's the best way I've found to document a vocabulary (to
> humans) and point to resources for processing it (for both humans and
> computers).
> --------------------------
My thoughts:
a.) The RDDL spec is poorly presented to people who are not familiar to
numerous W3C specs. It refers to XLink and XML:Base with little explanation
and jumps right in assuming one is familiar with them. Secondly it never
really explains who should use it and why they should.
b.) As poorly as I think of the W3C XML Schema spec, it at least has a primer
with examples and usage scenarios. The same for XQuery.
c.) So how exactly is simply putting up a webpage at the end of an HTTP URL
used as a namespace URI different from what you've done besides the fact that
you can claim buzzword compliance with yet another XML related spec aka RDDL?
In what ways have computer processing tools or other developers utilized the
fact that the your HTTP URLs used as URIs in your documents are RDDL documents
and not just [X]HTML documents?
Bottom Line: I don't think I'm dumber than the average software developer and
I'm a little familiar with XML related technologies yet I had difficulty
making head or tail of RDDL from the spec until reading a number of supporting
articles linked from previous emails in this thread. In my book, that
automatically counts as a technology that is (a.) too complex or (b.) poorly
documented, either way I'd avoid it like the plague unless I *had* to use it.
That said I do agree that there should be a mechanism for getting information
about namespaces both in a human readable form or information for computer
processing tools. For all I know, RDDL might be it but as long as the spec is
written as obscurely as it is and few examples of using it exist I doubt I'll
investigate it further.
If the authors of RDDL want it to be widely used then they have to make it
accessible to average developers and not just hardcore XML-DEVers.
My $0.02 which knowing the sensitivity of certain people has probably offended
someone. *sigh*
--
THINGS TO DO IF I BECOME AN EVIL OVERLORD #49
If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I
will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them
out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
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