dingbat@c... wrote:

> What a namespace really gives you is composition.  You're using RSS
> 1.0, which is a powerful syndication protocol made from lots of little
> sub-components plugged together by namespaces.
> 
> RSS 1.0 itself is small and easily learned. It knows about
> "syndication", but no more.
> Dublin Core knows about cataloguing metadata, so it understands
> "Authors" and "Rights". By adding it to RSS 1.0, you can gain
> properties that can represent a much deeper description of your content
> than RSS' own trivial model, but you don't need to extend RSS itself.
> 
> In contrast there is RSS 2.0.  This takes the opposite approach and
> ignores namespacing. So every time it's realised that there's a useful
> feature missing, the RSS 2.0 autocrat inventor adds yet another random
> property to it. The 2.0 protocol is an ugly rag-bag of random rubbish
> tacked onto it. It's big and bloated for most purposes, but it still
> isn't as simply and elegantly extensible as the much simpler RSS 1.0.
> 
> In one sense there is nothing that RSS1.0 and namespaces can give you
> that a well though-out RSS 2.1 could give you without namespaces. But
> this hypothetical 2.1 version would be bigger, it would be more
> specific to one subset of users' requirements, and it would not offer
> the huge re-use potential that a smaller namespace like DC does.
> 
> On your next project you might be cataloguing a library of video clips.
> You bump into Dublin Core again and you gain the advantage of _already_
> knowing this namespace and how to use it - an advantage for you. Then
> you add a syndication feed to this library and you choose to do it in
> RSS 1.0 with DC. Now there's a synergy effect too - the project is
> simpler and better because it's using the same representation
> throughout. This has advantages for the finished project, as well as
> for you.
> 
> RDF is also a useful part of this. RDF doesn't have an "application
> area" like syndication, it's much more general. It isn't even a
> "metadata protocol", as is sometimes claimed. All it adds is a
> graph-like model of obejcts and properties, so that any application
> understanding RDF but not (for instance) DC can still extract a useful
> data model that "knows" there are entities called "Item", "Author" etc.
> and that "phoneNumber" is a _property_ of an _entity_ called "Author"
> (XML alone can't do this).
THANKS A WHOLE BUNCH...:-)

-- 
http://www.kolumbus.fi/bob.smith