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RE: RE: DAML +OIL versus XML

• To: "Linda Grimaldi" <grimlinda@e...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: RE: DAML +OIL versus XML
• From: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@v...>
• Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:06:24 +0200
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <6073942.1053095843567.JavaMail.nobody@d...>
• Reply-to: <danny666@v...>

> If I read your reply correctly, this is exactly the way I see it.

In that case you must have read it correctly ;-)

> Most XML instance documents do not have to use the RDF (and
> associated standards) vocabulary.

Right, this is a point Uche has laboured long and hard, but I must admit
it's only following a recent bit of experimentation (mapping RSS 2.0 to the
RDF model [1]) that I'm beginning to feel comfortable with the idea.
Basically, the good bit of RDF is the model, so forget RDF/XML and map your
data (XML, RDBMS, whatever) directly to the model. If you use a vanilla XML
format, then in effect you've made this a domain-specific serialization of
RDF.

It would lead to pretty bloated
> and, a priori, incomprehensible XML if they did.

Bloated - probably, incomprehensible - not to a machine.

Plus it wouldn't
> do much for cross-schema inference. Relationships captured in an
> ontology server provide the basis for inference against vanilla
> XML instance documents.

So the ontology server would understand the XML instance data thanks to a
mapping? Whatever, if you do need to communicate with systems from other
domains then having your data available in  structures defined using RDF
(and OWL) makes the production of RDF/XML pretty straightforward.

 It seems to me this is what RDF is all
> about and, when applied appropriately, a lot of the "XML vs RDF"
> arguments more or less go away.  It all depends on what level you
> are working at- instance or ontology.

I certainly agree that the value of the model is all too often obscured by
the inelegance of the syntax.

Cheers,
Danny.

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