Tab Atkins Jr. On 09-05-15 22.15:
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
Toby Inkster on Wed May 13 02:19:17 PDT 2009:
Hear hear. Lets call it "Cascading RDF Sheets".
http://buzzword.org.uk/2008/rdf-ease/spec
http://buzzword.org.uk/2008/rdf-ease/reactions
RDFa is better though.
What does 'better' mean in this context? Why and how? Because it is easier
to process? But EASE seems more compatible with microformats, and is
"better" in that sense.
I'd also like clarification here. I dislike *all* of the inline
metadata proposals to some degree, for the same reasons that I dislike
inline @style and @onfoo handlers. A Selector-based way of applying
semantics fits my theoretical needs much better.
A possibly 10 year old use case where I think EASE - or GRDDL as such -
should fit in:
Shelley and Geoffrey reminded us that "RSS 1.0" stands for "RDF Site
Summary 1.0". The W3 also uses RSS 1.0. for its feed[1]. The feed is
generated via a profile transformation [2] that happens with XSLT. The
profile defines the <div class="item"> as news items (note the
combination of element and class - as in EASE)- But the profile also
implements particular rules for particular elements without looking at
the @class. (E.g. each <div class="item"> must contain <h2> or <h3>, for
example.)
All in all, it sounds very similar to what the newer technology GRDDL
does, since it is all happening based on a profile and some class names
and specific element structures. And, this is possible to test with the
W3 GRDDL service, which produces a "feed" that in fact, when you look
with the right eyes, is the same as the published homepage feed[3].
If the "microdata" becomes part of the final version of HTML 5, then
GRDDL (with or without EASE) will probably prosper, since it probably
doesn't matter to GRDDL whether it looks into @class or @item, as long
as "the thing" is part of the profile and the profiletransformation.
(But it would be interesting if someone in the know could test if the
"triples" would be the same, etc ...) And if so, then the introduction
of "microdata" increases the need for @profile in HTML 5.
[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/08/w3c-synd/home.rss
[2] http://www.w3.org/2000/08/w3c-synd/
[3]
http://www.w3.org/2007/08/grddl/?docAddr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F&output=rdfxml
I read all the reactions you pointed to. Some made the claim that EASE would
move semantics out of the HTML file, and that microformats was better as it
keeps the semantics inside the file. But I of course agree with you that
EASE just underline/outline the semantics already in the file.
Yup. The appropriate critique of separated metadata is that the
*data* is moved out of the document, where it will inevitably decay
compared to the live document. RDF-EASE keeps all the data stored in
the live document, and merely specifies how to extract it. The only
way you can lose data then is by changing the html structure itself,
which is much less common than just changing the content.
That the structure changes seldom, /could/ be a reason for using RDFa to
store the meta info in the very element instead of using EASE (or even
Dublin Core in <meta> elements in the <head>). OTOH, that the structure
changes little, could also be something that /permits/ the use of GRDDL
... So it depends on how you see it.
From the EASE draft:
All properties in RDF-EASE begin with the string -rdf-, as per §4.1.2.1
Vendor-specific extensions in [CSS21]. This allows RDF-EASE and CSS to be
safely mixed in one file, [...]
I wonder why you think it is so important to be able to mix CSS and EASE. It
seems better to separate the two completely.
I'm not thrilled with the mixture of CSS and metadata either. Just
because it uses Selectors doesn't mean it needs to be specifiable
alongside CSS. jQuery uses Selectors too, but it stays where it
belongs. ^_^ (That being said, there's a plugin for it that allows
you to specify js in your CSS, and it gets applied to the matching
elements from the block's selector.)
But may be, after all, it ain't so bad. It is good to have the
opportunity. :-) (Since you, as I perceived it, disagreed with yourself
above, I continue the tradition.) :-)
--
leif halvard silli
