Andy Dingley wrote:
> Leeh wrote:
> 
> 
>>I understand that the "real" RDF model is the conceptual network of
>>nodes (Subjects and Objects) connected by predicate arcs;
> 
> 
> Congratulations!  You're probably the first person to ever post an RDF
> question here, yet to understand that already. And you thought you were
> "naive" ?
> 
> 
> 
>>the official way to serialize the graph is to use the RDF/XML specification.
> 
> 
> Hmmm.....
> 
> It's certainly not "the official way", just one of the oficially
> described ways.
> 
> 
>>So far so good; but N3 and/or N-Triple notations are also used, and it
>>sure seems to me that N3 is  "iso-morphic" to the graph;
> 
> 
> You're not really getting this "naive" thing are you?  8-)   That's a
> pretty insightful comment and it took the RDF WG about 3 years before
> it really sank in. The _history_ of RDF is as a fix to some issues with
> XML. The "typical" understanding of RDF is as a sub-dialect of
> XML(sic). The clueful understanding of it around the WG is increasingly
> that triples are where it's at and what do we need this XML stuff for
> anyway?  Pragmatic reality obviously has to be somewhere in the middle.
> 
> If RDF were started again today, I don't think there'd be any XML
> anywhere near it.
> 
> You have to remember though that RDF is pretty old, and it began at a
> time when XML was suffering from being looked down on by the SGML and
> HyTime people as too limited and so needed extensions built on top of
> it. There was also a pervasive attitude that XML could solve everything
> (I mean _everything_ - it was the era of universal semantic translation
> by XSLT) and it would be truly universal in the future.
> 
> 
>>If we need to express the graph model in an XML -ish form, why wouldnt
>>it be easier, simpler, less fattening, whatever, to start with the the
>>triples
> 
> 
> Good.
> 
> 
>>thus:  [some XML stuff]
> 
> 
> Bad.
> 
> The problem is one of legacy. RDF/XML's strength (its only strength) is
> in its close resemblance to a pure-XML solution devoid of most RDF
> structure and certainly devoid of "triples". Look at the post-2004
> descriptions of RDF/XML; compare them to the pre-2004 "striped" use of
> XML to represent RDF in XML and constrast them to pre-2000 notions of
> representing RDF in XML.
> 
> RDF/XML's main weakness is as you've identified: it's a weird way to
> represent triples and triples are the clear representation of RDF.
> RDF/XML is RDF's own worst enemy when it comes to clear understanding
> of what's really going on.
> 
> However if RDF/XML is ever to fly, it _must_ be XML-like, including a
> strong resemblance to the sort of XML documents that a non-RDF
> architect would design. User acceptance from the existing XML community
> demands this. For another thing it (currently) relies on the
> data-typing of XML Schema, and that itself depends on binding through
> mapping properties and element names in the RDF/XML approach rather
> than your triples-in-XML approach.
> 
> 
> 
>>But as far as I can tell, no one has done or proposed such a thing. Has
>>it got some sort of fatal flaw, conceptual or practical, that I'm
>>looking right past?
> 
> 
> What you suggest is an excellent way to directly represent triples in
> XML. However triples can be represented in many ways, and XML doesn't
> really offer anything here (compared to N3)
> 
> 
>>What makes RDF/XML , which to my inexperienced eye seems a bit clunky in
>>comparison, the preferred notation over N3 or an xml-ized version of N3 ?
> 
> 
> "Clunky" is certainly true. It's not even sure if RDF/XML _is_ the
> preferred notation any more. I don't think it is for most of Bristol
> (from my last conversations with HP people). The RDF theoretical people
> seem to focus on N3 entirely.
> 
> I'm in a different non-HP world these days. I have to work with XML and
> I introduce RDF into things as far as I can get away with. So for me,
> RDF/XML is the only way I can possibly work. It's still a little weird,
> but then I remember how bad it was before 2004!
> 
> I don't think your RDF-in-triples-in-XML will ever be adopted. It's a
> great idea, but it solves the wrong problem. No-one wants both triples
> _and_ XML, the triples people don't need XML, the XML people can't work
> with something that's so different to non-RDF XML.
> 
It is to laugh; see Triples to RDF thus:

http://www.mulberrytech.com/Extreme/Proceedings/html/2004/Stickler01/EML2004Stickler01.html

I should have done more homework!