[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Media Types, Purposes, Natures, and XSL Transforms
Jonathan Borden (jonathan@o...) wrote: > Eric Hanson wrote: > >> Furthermore the semantics of RDDL's purpose differ from > >> Typekit's purpose in case of a transform. RDDL uses the > >> purpose to indicate the result's type, while Typekit > >> indicates the result's purpose. IMHO such subtle semantic > >> differences should be avoided in case of two similar specs > >> - especially since they complement each other quite > >> nicely. > > > > +1 for getting them the same. > > > > I'm not a big fan of how RDDL overloads nature/purpose to > > include info like this. IMHO, nature should indicate what a > > resource *is*, purpose what it *does*, in general terms, > > without indicating any specifics. Everything else should be > > external. > > Fair enough. I was making the assumption that one can *infer* > that something that *is* an XSLT *does* a transform but > indeed it is overloading what would otherwise be a > rddl:nature (of the result) with a rddl:purpose (i.e. that > the purpose of a transform is to produce something with the > nature of the result) If that makes any sense ... perhaps > not. > > I should point out that the way this is described in the RDDL > spec is *explicitly* being used as an *example*. RDDL 7.14: > " XSLT Stylesheet > > An example of an XSLT stylesheet for RDDL, which accepts the > params role and arcrole. The transform inserts the document > referenced by xlink:href in the output. This code is shown as > an example and is not normative. " > > I.e. the RDDL spec does not mandate that nature and purpose be > used this way with XSLT, rather offers an example of how > nature and purpose *might* be used with XSLT. Another point of divergence. It seems to me that RDDL is designed to do something, and I'm trying to use it to do something else entirely. Just to recap, and correct me if I got anything wrong here, but: RDDL doesn't mandate the way that resources are described, where with Typekit, developing a standard is precisely the point of the spec. RDDL is human readable, but for Typekit's uses, human readability is totally pointless. RDDL doesn't need to specify the namespace it's associated with because it's deployed at the namespace URI. Typekit docs will need to include it. Given these differences, I think developing Typekit as a seperate spec makes sense. However, the two specs do have a complimentary nature, and I think getting at least the resource descriptions the same would be good idea. Like you say just use the rddl:nature and rddl:purpose vocab. From my perspective, nature and purpose have a general usefulness that extends beyond the scope of RDDL. How about abstracting these from RDDL and making them the basis of a stand-alone way of describing resources that support XML data? The first acronym that comes to mind for this is, well, RDF. :-) Which makes me think I'm trying to reinvent a wheel here without knowing it. If so, someone place club me with the clue stick, but as far as I can tell, this isn't what RDF does. Eric
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|