Xesam meta-meta-data spec needs attention.

[Sebastian Trüg]

On Friday 04 May 2007 13:00:28 Evgeny Egorochkin wrote:
> On Thursday 03 May 2007 10:42:49 Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> > > > > I think still this compexity issue is not an issue at all. The
> > > > > reason
> > >
> > > I
> > >
> > > > > think
> > > > > so is:
> > > > > 1) most of metametadata definitions will be provided by Xesam
> > > > > 2) code to parse this in the database will be written only once
> > > > > 3) If a dev needs an exotic field, somebody can help. It's not much
> > > > > of
> > > > >
> > > > > work.
> > > >
> > > > Don't underestimate where newcomer devs poke around. I clearly
> > > > remember myself a good while back poking around with some fancy
> > > > gnome-vfs code,
> > >
> > > some
> > >
> > > > objects read as .desktop files, and even if I didn't know anything
> > > > about
> > > >
> > > > those at that time I could readily work with them. Who knows - if
> > > > that
> > >
> > > had
> > >
> > > > been some obscure format (sorry I don't mean that rdf is obscure :-))
> > > > I might have stopped there and might not have been here today...
> > > >
> > > > So even if most apps will use a helper lib don't forget that we
> > > > should
> > >
> > > also
> > >
> > > > make it easy for people to poke around. Didn't we all start that way?
> > >
> > > There are RDF formats that are extremely newcomer-friendly. Nobody
> > > today complains when they see XML which looks no way better and nobody
> > > raises any "complexity" issues whenever XML is suggested as a
> > > representation. I don't see how RDF is worse in this aspect. Its
> > > representation is text-based
> > > and meta-meta spec except regexps can be figured out from just a couple
> > > example definitions. Newcomers are not dumb by any means.
> >
> > Oh,  I for sure complain about complex XML formats and believe me, many
> > do. Take for instance XML Schema (just for one) do you know and
> > appreciate the *full* spec?
>
> This is an incorrect comparison. Xesam provides what would be an equivalent
> of XML Schema. Regular devs only do fill-in the blanks job on a simple
> template with a human-readable doc and examples.
>
> Nobody really have exaustive knowledge of any reasonably complex standards
> just like no dev(even highly skilled) knows the libraries he's using.
>
> > > So what is more important is flexibility, extensibility and
> > > compatibility.
> > >
> > > > Don't the .desktop-approach have that?
> > >
> > > Flexibility, no. There are many things which RDF and XML can do and
> > > .desktop
> > > can't.
> >
> >4444
> > Yes, of course RDF can do a lot more that is the whole point :-) But can
> > it do anything we need that we cannot do with .desktop files?
> >
> > I think it would be good to have some concrete cases of .desktop vs RDF
> > approach (with different RDF syntaxes possibly). Also it would be useful
> > to track down some concrete cases of what RDF could do that .desktop
> > can't...
>
> .desktop doesn't allow classes for files. This can be replaced to a degree
> by file:types. e.g. [compressed, lossless, audio] or [document,text,source
> code]
>
> Missing are structures. As soon as we go further than generic metadata like
> author and size, and try to extract document structure, we'll run into
> troubles. An example: c++ sources with nested classes and their members.
> Too many workarounds would be necessary for .desktop
>
> I do realise that the first revision of xesam spec is not likely to go that
> far. Nevertheless, I expect to hit .desktop limitations quite soon and
> don't find it reasonable to reinvent the wheel(visualisation etc).
>
> btw, is there any way to provide for localization in Notation-3 or Turtle
> RDF? I can't seem to find any. The advantage of these syntaxes is that they

that is a very good question. I will forward that and see what our experts 
have to say.

> are as clean as .dekstop while remaning a fully-featured RDF syntax.
> It could look like this:
>
> @base URL
>
> Author
> 	is_a		field;
> 	of_type	integer;
> 	...
> 	comment "example".
>
> > > Also, I don't think project leaders absolutely must get directly
> > > involved. They can delegate technical negotiations to their team
> > > members and only look
> > > at "snapshots" of the negotiations & provide feedback on key issues.
> >
> > Right. So project leaders, please consider sending stand-ins if you are
> > caught in a tight spot. I just wonder - who am I gonna send :-)
>
> You are doing just fine at this moment :)
>
> -- Evgeny
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