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RE: RDDL(2): new version up

• To: 'Micah Dubinko' <MDubinko@c...>, XML Developer List <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: RDDL(2): new version up
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:32:39 -0600

Sure.  It keeps us fresh. 

Of the disadvantages, lack of lots of implementations stands out.
Why don't people implement it more often?
 
1. Links are often (eg HTML) conflated with controls.  That 
is a deal-killer.  As you say, 'href' has too many separable 
semantics and at the bottom of that is the whole 'what is 
a resource' debate one inherits from 'what is a URI'.

2. IME, or n-way links, there are 
easier ways to get the job done for many applications. For 
the most common control example, a select list, table 
driving a population of one way links is easier.

It comes down to 'why does one *declare* a link' if they 
have 'http://anyResource'?  IOW, an n-way link is neat 
conceptually, but practically, it is a named collection 
of one-way links and the application determines the rest.

The namespace issues are problems web namespace designers 
make for themselves; that is, who needs xlink:href if there 
is always the backwards compatible requirement with HTML 
stuck in there somewhere.  That limits innovation at jump.

len


From: Micah Dubinko [mailto:MDubinko@c...]

(Do we really want to reignite this permathread here and now?)

Why does XLink work pretty well in monolithic vocabularies?

Because there the disadvantages (complexity, namespace haze, lack of
implementations) don't have much effect.

Why does XLink have problems with mixed vocabularies?

Because it uses a single attribute name (xlink:href) for multiple purposes.
One way to keep things separate is proposed at SkunkLink.
http://dubinko.info/writing/skunklink/

.micah

-----Original Message-----
From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@i...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 9:58 AM
To: 'Micah Dubinko'; 'Simon St.Laurent'; XML Developer List
Subject: RE:  RDDL(2): new version up


Why?

len

From: Micah Dubinko [mailto:MDubinko@c...]

XLink works pretty well in monolithic vocabularies, but runs into problems
when you start mixing and matching.

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