Re: [xml-dev] RE: Ten years after: what are the top 5 ?

[Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>]

Paul Hermans wrote:
>  Due to my background I started with the XML serialization of RDF 
> using XSLT to do the querying and the transformations.
> But this didn't feel right, using tree based processing on graphs.
> So I moved quickly to other serializations (N3) and SPARQL instead of XSLT.
>   
Yes, it always seemed that the RDF people had just jumped on the XML 
bandwagon despite the bad fit.  At the time, there was gossip that at 
least one of the leading lights had said (attributing it to Knuth) that 
XML was a fad.

I am not against KR or any of the AI projects' many fruits: I don't want 
to give that impression. But almost all these systems where the model is 
not transparent from the markup (e.g. where there are components) it is 
tenuous to call them "XML" in the sense that other things are XML IMHO: 
I think the test is whether the developer can work productively using 
generic XML tools or whether they have to work with custom APIs to work 
on the model directly. XSD (with its "components") is one where working 
in the XML is terrible. Parts of OOXML get near failing the test.  And 
RDF is certainly one.

So perhaps we can amend my comment to: I have a perception of people 
adopting RDF (in XML) then figuring out they didn't get any extra 
benefit over using plain old XML or an optimized RDF notation.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe