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bob@wyman.us (Bob Wyman) writes:
> I have a feeling that the reference to ASN.1 was probably
>meant to be humorous... Nonetheless, there is actually great merit to
>what you've suggested.
No, it wasn't completely humorous. The humor comes from my suspicion
that ASN.1 and RDF have similar difficulties in reaching broad
audiences, but technically it seems sensible to me for the bulk of RDF
work I've encountered.
> The issue being discussed in this thread is the *syntax* for
>RDF encodings rather than the abstract data model. If RDF were defined
>in ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation), the representational issues
>associated with encoding in one form or another could be separated
>from the much more interesting issues of what you can do with RDF-like
>data. How do you reason with it? etc.
>
> A definition of RDF in ASN.1 would, I think, reveal the
>simplicity, the beauty and power of RDF in a way that the current
>documents hide with their oppressive focus on obscure encoding issues
>and options. An ASN.1 syntax for RDF would be almost as simple as what
>is described in the RDF Abstract Syntax definition (see:
>http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/). In other words, it would simply
>define a triple (subject, predicate, object) and provide for graphs of
>triples. Just about everything from there on is encoding notation and
>has little to do with the way that data is processed by programs or
>thought about by humans... Given an ASN.1 syntax for RDF, we could all
>focus on the information, not it's encoding.
Sounds like a plan to me.
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