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RE: RDDL: proposal to document the target namespace of a RDDL

• To: "'Eric van der Vlist'" <vdv@d...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: RDDL: proposal to document the target namespace of a RDDL document.
• From: Michael Brennan <Michael_Brennan@A...>
• Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 13:11:44 -0800

> From: Eric van der Vlist [mailto:vdv@d...]

<snip/>

> Michael Brennan wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I personally don't think that this by itself adds much 
> value. RDDL, in its
> > current form, relies upon the derefencing of a namespace 
> URI to get the RDDL
> > document, so an application always knows in advance what the "target
> > namespace" is. Having a simple link in the document for 
> this is redundant
> > and adds no value.
> 
> That's not true at all. If I open http://rddl.org or follow a link to 
> http://rddl.org in my browser, the URL bar displays 
> "http://www.openhealth.org/RDDL/" and I have absolutely no 
> way to know 
> which namespace is documented.

That's just because it is doing a redirect. Surely the application (or user)
knows what URL was initially used to obtain the resource.

<snip/>

> But this would break the simplicity of RDDL and to do more complex 
> things, I would much prefer using RDF...
> 
> My proposal is more than a dirty hack when you think about it. The 
> document (in whatever location if is) is a container which 
> documents a 
> target namespace by defining a bunch of resources. This translates 
> pretty well into RDF to associate resources defined into 
> different RDDL 
> documents describing the same namespace if you had to.
> 
> And it makes RDDL documents movable which IMO is fundamental 
> as well: I 
> feel very uncomfortable with documents which meaning changes when you 
> move them!

Yeah, that's why I liked the notion of extended links. But I also like the
current simplicity of RDDL, so I've been inclined to think of an extended
link variant as an optional alternative that can be used in place of RDDL in
certain contexts (such as in an XML Archive file), but not intended as a
wholesale replacement of RDDL. 

RDF may fit here, as well, but I tend to lean in favor of linking rather
than RDF assertions. XLink is much more approachable to most developers than
RDF. Also, it's not clear to me how you would support both an arcrole and
role for a resource locator using RDF -- unless you use an RDF/XLink
combintation as XPackage does, and XPackage has a rather unweildy syntax
IMO. 

I see your point, though, and I seem to stand alone in my opinion that
extended links could be useful for this purpose.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: RDDL: proposal to document the target namespace of a RDDL document.
    • From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...>
  • XPackage location (was: proposal to document the target namespace of a RDDL document)
    • From: "Garret Wilson" <garret@g...>
  • Re: RDDL: proposal to document the target namespace of a RDDL document.
    • From: Eric van der Vlist <vdv@d...>

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