Re: Non-Javascript RDF API-s?

[Jans Aasman]

oh, in that case I would say I agree with your position to focus on 
Javascript/Web Application only.

Jans,

there is definitely a plan to define a JavaScript (or, if you prefer, 
ECMAScript or WebIDL). The issue is what our general attitude should be v.a.v. 
Java and Python and C and...

Ivan




On Jan 11, 2011, at 18:15 , Jans Aasman wrote:

Hi Ivan: Happy New Year to you too.  We at Franz definitely  have a very 
particular need for some standardization wrt JavaScript. A customer paid us to 
build a JavaScript compiler that can run in the server and because of the lack 
of a standard we just came up with some random API.  It would be great if we 
could have a standard for both the client and server that made some sense 
together. We would be more than happy to help with the process.

Jans


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On 1/11/2011 4:05 AM, Ivan Herman wrote:
Dear all,

first of all, a very happy new year to you all!

The reason of this mail is some sort of an informal poll. I am not sure how 
closely you followed this, but there has been quite some discussion in the past 
few months on the necessity (or not...) of a standard RDF API for Web 
Application developers. In practice this means a standard API for 
{Java|ECMA}Script, with a particular attention to the needs and programming 
style of that community. In parallel to this discussion the RDFa Working 
Group[1] had been working on an RDFa API for a while and, in the course of this 
work, it became clear that it would be properly done only if a proper RDF API 
for Javascript is also defined. So the current thinking at W3C is that we would 
slightly recharter the current RDFa Working Group to publish that RDF API part 
as a Recommendation, too.

However... that obviously raises the question of non-Javascript API-s to RDF. 
The reason I contact you all is because you have all been involved in some way 
or other with API definition and/or development for other languages, let that 
be C, Java, Python, PHP, or Lisp. It is not clear at this moment whether such 
an RDF API work, as envisaged in the RDFa Working Group, should take into 
account other programming languages actively from the start (ie, define 
something much more generic) or whether it should really concentrate on 
Javascript only. There are a number of issues here, including non-technical 
ones (the effort it would take both for the developer and the application 
community to migrate to a new API is the obvious and huge issue). I for myself 
believe that the non-technical issues are the really tough ones; my strictly 
_personal_ feeling at this point is that the effort in the Working group should 
concentrate on the needs of Javascript/Web Application only, and let oth
er programming language communities decide whether they want to take that work 
into account or not. But maybe my judgement on the community's need is wrong. 
That is why it would be very helpful for us to get some feedback from you...

Sincerely

Ivan

P.S. I may have missed somebody in this list. Feel free to add, in your reply, 
anybody else whom you think should be consulted...

[1]
http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/


----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
Home:
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mobile: +31-641044153
PGP Key:
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FOAF:
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----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf