[SCL] Re: some explanation

Wed Mar 16 16:51:45 CST 2005

>John F. Sowa wrote:
>>Ed,
>>
>>Thanks for the comments.  I basically agree.
>>
>>And while we're talking about translating logic
>>to XML form, I would like to quote a passage
>>by Tim Bray, one of the chief developers and
>>proponents of XML who also wrote one of the
>>early tutorials on RDF back in 1998.
>>
>>Although Tim strongly supports XML, he is decidedly
>>lukewarm about RDF syntax, and I strongly agree
>>with him.  As I said before, there are many good
>>applications for XML, but please note what Tim has
>>to say at the end of the excerpt below:
>[...]
>
>John,
>
>I might note that so far as I understand from talking with Pat,
>the syntax we're proposing for XCL is XML-based but not RDF/XML-
>based, "RDF/XML" meaning the XML serialization of RDF -- the one
>most people think of when they think "RDF."

Absolutely. In spades.  I have never ever used 
RDF/XML for RDF (If you read the RDF semantics, 
there is no RDF/XML in it anywhere.) As I 
regularly tell audiences, RDF/XML 'striped 
syntax' is the 8-track tape of the XML world.

>The proposed syntax
>for XCL is of the former variety:  XML-style computer markup, and
>is the kind of XML markup that Tim Bray would consider readable.

Right. And that you, Murray, would consider extendable.

>I think Tim and I see pretty much eye-to-eye on what constitutes
>readable XML. If someone wants to convert XCL to an RDF/XML
>syntax, I suggest someone create an XSLT stylesheet to do that.
>It would be relatively straightforward. It's not something I'm
>interested in doing.

Me neither. I think even the W3C mavens are 
drifting slowly but surely away from RDF/XML: 
there are a variety of other RDF notations in 
use, some of them using XML, and some of them 
creeping into W3C recommendations.

>Some people have criticized my particular design style as being
>verbose; the reason for the verbosity is partly readability.
>With no criticism intended, you can see the difference between
>my style and say, Steve Newcomb's SGML style in looking at the
>SGML DTDs for ISO 13250 Topic Maps and the XTM 1.0 syntax. I
>can't claim sole credit for the latter (it was a team effort),
>but the element naming conventions are my style, i.e., no
>short little element names, no abbreviations. XCL is actually
>shorter than I'd normally make it, using 'pred' instead of
>'predicate', but it's pretty readable. You can see a very early,
>strawman draft at:
>
>      http://purl.org/xcl/
>
>which (Pat correct me if I'm wrong) is being used as a rough
>basis for the current XCL syntax.

Right. Maybe 'seed' is more like it.

>(And yes, I've got the PURL
>domain for XCL so at some point we can point it to the final
>online specification...)

We are in your debt.

>And to reiterate, it's not expected that people will hand-write
>in XML. It's a serialization syntax for machine-to-machine
>interchange. Being "readable" doesn't mean people have to
>read it, or write it. But it's good when you *can* read it,
>whereas I agree with Tim -- I look at RDF markup and both my
>eyes and brain just glaze over. Some people religiously love
>it. To each their own.
>
>I don't enter into this conversation with any intention of
>defending XML against other forms of markup; that argument is
>silly to continue. The market is currently XML. There is no
>demonstrable "backlash" against it, and universities and
>training centers are *adding* courses in XML markup, not
>removing them. XML is still very much nearer the beginning of
>its lifecycle than the end. If there is to be a serialization
>syntax for XCL, it might include other markup forms, but if
>anyone wants to be taken seriously by both the development and
>Web communities (which the W3C represents a *portion* of), it's
>waaaay past time to be arguing about syntax and just deliver
>what is necessary to gain traction amongst the target audience.
>XCL can then take its place amongst other SGML-based ISO
>standards, something long overdue.

Murry, lets play politics here. Lets avoid words 
like 'based'. I don't really care what counts as 
base and what counts as teapot handles. All that 
matters to developers is that there is an 
adequate, well-designed XML specification. 
Whether that is in appendix 19c, or in section 
1.0 and labelled "foundation", isn't really all 
that important. Right? So, the CL group just 
loves the idea of an abstract syntax as a 
foundation, and that's what they now have. 
Developers aren't going to read that part of the 
spec anyway, its just there to give theoreticians 
wet dreams.

Pat

>Murray
>
>......................................................................
>Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
>Knowledge Media Institute
>The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .
>
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