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Re: RE: XML/RDF

• To: xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: RE: XML/RDF
• From: "Anthony B. Coates" <abcoates@T...>
• Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 10:45:41 GMT
• In-reply-to: <002701c2870e$aa3754c0$6401a8c0@pcukmka>
• References: <07XTJFEOIYYUZXSFEPLE95Y21CJI.3dc6e1be@MChamp> <002701c2870e$aa3754c0$6401a8c0@pcukmka>
• Reply-to: "Anthony B. Coates" <abcoates@T...>

** Reply to message from "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...> on Fri, 8
Nov 2002 10:07:37 -0000

> It also highlights the thing I haven't understood about RDF: in what way
> is it supposed to be different from the "binary relational" data models
> that have been lying around largely unimplemented for 30 years, except
> for academic prototypes and a few interesting niche applications in
> areas such as criminology?

Well, it's similar to a data warehousing application I was told about this
week, called Kalido

http://www.kalido.com/

which apparently uses a simple thing-association database model.  It is
nonetheless quite performant, able to handle Shell's retail operations, and
Shell has more outlets than McDonalds!

The RDF model is a little different, being

subject-predicate-object

so the relationships (predicates) are one-directional, subject to object, but
it is similar enough.  The topic map model is

thing-role-association-role-thing

where the associations are bidirectional (or multi-directional, as you can have
any number of roles in a topic map association), and I've seen relational
database developers independently come up with this solution for representing
complex and changing metadata links between data.  So I would have to argue that
these models are not unimplemented, although I have the impression that at the
moment they are more implemented anonymously, as part of in-house relational
database solutions, than obviously, as part of off-the-shelf solutions.

	Cheers,
		Tony.
====
Anthony B. Coates, Information & Software Architect
mailto:abcoates@T...
MDDL Editor (Market Data Definition Language)
http://www.mddl.org/

• References:
  • Re: RE: XML/RDF
    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
  • RE: RE: XML/RDF
    • From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>

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