Re: [xml-dev] Xlink Isn't Dead

["Alexander Johannesen" <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com>]

Hiya,

On 9/23/06, Bob DuCharme <bob@snee.com> wrote:
> All right, you asked for it: if a link is a specific relationship between
> two identifiable resources--a relationship that can be implemented with a
> hypertext link or with whatever rendering a given medium is capable
> of--and we want to express that link in such a way that the link itself
> can have its own metadata, then RDF can do this quite well. It's
> particularly good at out-of-line links (and RDF/XML is particularly bad at
> inline links).

The key here is where you put the context. To find the context of the
resource in question we need to find that resources place in the
linked-to document, and this is where RDF and Topic Maps are very
different, because we're coming into the realm of merging
domain-views, something Topic Maps were designed to do out of the box
but which XLink nor RDF do well.

> I'm only half serious, but I do think that RDF and Topic Maps played a
> serious role in XLink's failure

Interestingly, I explored Xlink deeper because I got into Topic Maps ...

> , which was mostly due to the lack of a
> community that was excited about XLink enough to implement and promote it.

My biggest problem with Xlink were the reclarifications of something
we all knew from HTML. Why impose a whole standard for linking when
most people would be happy as larry with xml:href or instead just used
xhtml:href? 80/20 :)

> (We all know that a spec doesn't have to be good to have such a community
> built around it.) People interested in building applications on top of
> device-independent methods for expressing information relationships hopped
> on the RDF and Topic Map trains, and the XLink train sat in the station
> waiting for more passengers than the XBRL folk.

The Topic Maps train has just left the station, while the RDF train
has come back 10 times to pick up more people, even if the service on
the RDF train is reputed to be bad. Crowds think strange, indeed. :)


Alex
-- 
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
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