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On 2002-02-21 10:31, "ext Ronald Bourret" <rpbourret@rpbourret.com> wrote:
> Tim Bray wrote:
>
>> Right... Ron and Rick, could your needs with respect to context
>> and phase be met by combination of natures/purposes?
>
> It's theoretically possible, but unrealistic in practice. The problem is
> that requiring a namespace to know about the contexts in which it is
> used is inside out -- rather like requiring me to document the links
> that other people make to my Web site.
Exactly.
>> Failing this, what kind of machinery would you need to meet
>> your needs? -Tim
>
> Actually, the RDDL machinery is not bad. The problem for me is that it
> is associated with a namespace, rather than the document as a whole (or
> even an application/document combination).
>
> Of course, the real problem is what is realistic. If you associate a
> RDDL document with a particular document "type", then you still have an
> inside-out problem -- the document can't possibly provide information
> about all the applications that can use it.
It was this "truth" that motivated my suggestion of recrafting RDDL
as RDF, so that what a "namespace document" becomes is a bundle of
general knowledge about a bundle of resources all of which have some
relationship to the namespace (according to the opinion of the
namespace owner) and yet would allow for the multi-dimentional
relations between vocabulary terms, vocabularies, document models,
stylesheets, schemas, software components, etc. etc. to be stated
more precisely and meaningfully (for applications).
The RDF could be embedded in the XHTML foundation of RDDL so that
we still have a "hybrid" solution providing information both for
humans and applications.
But the flat nature of RDDL just doesn't provide what is needed. A
few tweaks and it could.
> So it seems there are three rough levels:
>
> 1) Provide information at the namespace level. RDDL does this today. The
> namespace <=> RDDL association is a big advantage, as it means people
> can find the information. The disadvantage is that the information lacks
> context.
>
> 2) Provide information at the document (vocabulary) level. This is
> better, but (a) there is no current mechanism for finding the
> information, and (b) a lot of information will probably be repeated with
> slight variations when elements from a given namespace are used in
> different documents.
>
> 3) Provide information at the application/document level. The
> information is close to complete, but probably too specific. Again, no
> current mechanism exists.
You don't need to choose any specific level for RDDL or general
web-accessible knowledge. If RDDL is tweaked to allow for arbitrary
statements about arbitrary resources, then it is simply a source
of knowledge about resources -- described within the context of
their shared relation to that namespace -- not a description about
the namespace itself.
Regards,
Patrick
--
Patrick Stickler Phone: +358 50 483 9453
Senior Research Scientist Fax: +358 7180 35409
Nokia Research Center Email: patrick.stickler@nokia.com
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