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> 1.) "Kerry also plans to parse each document as it arrives, but because
> the documents are RDF, the information can be stored in a triple store,
> which may be implemented in a relational database. Kerry doesn't need to
> define the tables to store the information items because the RDF model
> dictates how the data is to be represented."
>
> So a benefit of the RDF solution is that instead of leveaging existing
> investements in relational data stores that are common place in the
> enterprise one can use a different, potentially incompatible data store?
> Have you missed the occurences within the database world in the past few
> years with regards to Object Oriented Databases and Native XML
> databases? This should be taken to heart whenever one touts some new
> data storage technology as a replacement for relational stores.
I think Ian's example of using a triple store is rather an fringe case. RDF
is itself a relational model, and mapping from pre-existing DBs (relational
or native XML) is likely to be straightforward because RDF is less rigid
structurally. Personally I expect that in practice most R/Object/XMLDB users
that wish to exploit RDF won't actually migrate as such, rather they will
reevaluate their existing structures in terms of the RDF graph, and extend
outwards without giving up their existing base.
> XSLT is your friend. Soon we'll have XQuery and this will be even more
> of a moot point.
I don't entirely disagree. But although XSLT and the de facto XML model
(trees with nodes that can contain attribute-value pairs) make some kinds of
work easier, they make modelling arbitrary graph structures harder than it
needs to be. Within the enterprise the dominant data structures may still be
tables and trees (and hybrids) but once you start joining these together,
which is what is happening with the net, you gain from using a more flexible
model.
It's a point that Uche's in a better position to argue, but once more this
isn't an either/or choice. It will be possible to get the benefits of XML
and RDF technologies - that the primary serialization of RDF is XML is a big
hint.
Cheers,
Danny.
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