Friday, June 27 2003

Me : http://aaronland.info/html/ed/example.txt

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Seventeen Short Triples About Baking Powder:

<?xml version="1.0"?>



<rdf:RDF 



  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"



  xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"



  xmlns:e="http://eatdrinkfeelgood.org#">







  <e:ingredient rdf:about = "http://eatdrinkfeelgood.org/recipe#ingredient">



   <rdfs:label>ingredient</rdfs:label>







   <e:quantity>



    <e:range rdf:about = "http://eatdrinkfeelgood.org/general/quantity#range">



     <rdfs:label>between</rdfs:label>



     <e:lower>



      <e:num rdf:about = "http://example.com/number/int#4">



       <rdfs:label>5</rdfs:label>



      </e:num>



     </e:lower>



     <e:upper>



      <e:num rdf:about = "http://example.com/number/decimal#6.5">



       <rdfs:label>6.5</rdfs:label>



      </e:num>



     </e:upper>



    </e:range>



   </e:quantity>







   <e:measure>



    <e:unit rdf:about = "http://example.com/measure/unit#teaspoon">



     <rdfs:label>teaspoon</rdfs:label>



    </e:unit>



    </e:measure>







   <e:item>



    <e:foodstuff rdf:about = "http://eatdrinkfeelgood.org/foodstuff#bakingpowder">



    <rdfs:label>baking powder</rdfs:label>



   </e:foodstuff>



  </e:item>







 </e:ingredient>







</rdf:RDF>

meta

aaron:2 + boris:2 = boris:5

From: 	Aaron Straup Cope



To: 	boris



Subject: 	Re: Hrm.. Echo?



Date: 	27 Jun 2003 08:08:02 -0400	







Yeah, I've heard of echo. I wish them luck, but I honestly don't think



it will fly. For a few reasons:







In among all the talk of a common syndication format is talk of a common



API and that's *never* going to happen. I spent a little bit of time



thrashing around with this on the weblog-devel list and it became clear



that given the difficulties in identifying just the parts of a post



(body; title, body; title,link,body; excerpt,body; etc.) we weren't ever



going to get very far. 







Two points here: 1) that we were even able to agree on the idea of



"post" speaks volumes about the influence that RSS has had on things 2)



that we didn't succeed in creating a Grand Unifying Theory of Weblog is



okay and probably a Good Thing.







I've said this a few times in the last couple days, spewing almost



nothing but pure bile yesterday [1], these are technical problems.



Everybody wants some magic seamless import/export functionality (or at



least the idea of it; I have yet to understand what people are going to



*do* with it when they get it,) The impression I get is that they think



some kind of dorky, the network is my pal, group hug is the way to deal 



with it. It is not. 







It is not, because anything that gets developed will, in short order, be



RSS-ed. That is, no one is going to wait around to achieve consensus on



whether or not their patches to the spec are approved. Not users and



certainly not developers. Let me pause for a moment and say, lest you



think I have turned in to some kind of irate laissez faire crank that I



am all for consensus where applicable. XML is a good place for



standardization; weblogs and the various bits associated with them are



not. A weblog has always been, whatever anyone wanted to be (just do a



Google search on "Ben Brown 3000 words") and, by extension so, is its



static representation and its I/O "methods" (API, if any.) 







Any standardization there is today is simply the result of convention



which is fine, but don't confuse it for the "stoneness of the stone" so



to speak.







People are trying to pin it down (again) because they think there's big



money somewhere in here, atleast in the short term. What they are really



trying to do is pin down RSS (which was pinned down a long time ago) and



formalize the weblog as its vehicle. They can probably do the first, but



people will continue to do whatever they want on their weblogs. That is



the Idea of Weblog.







RSS is not a weblog archive format, despite what other people may say.



It never was; it has always just been an XML representation of the



intersection of many different weblogs (what is the role of the <link>



element, anyone?) and it sure looks like people got blinded by the



light. Weblog authors and tool-maker have too many divergent needs and



interests to ever follow one another's lead. Never mind the social



engineering.



 



It's not rocket science. All people need is for tool-makers to provide a



static XML dump of their content. The semantics don't really matter;



docs would help but it's not the end of the world. Any kind of



interchange of content is going to require human intervention. I sense



that people want to believe this isn't true but, well, they're wrong.



We're not crunching numbers here. It's human thought, with all its



subtleties and contradictions, and computers suck when it comes to



grokking stuff like that. 







We're going to have to keep have holding their little binary hands for a



long time to come. We're going to have to keep on actively maintaining



lists, mental or otherwise, that say aaron:2 + boris:2 = boris:5. 







Which sucks, perhaps, but people had better get used to it. That's life.



That's the bad news. The good news is that these days we have tools and



frameworks (repeat after me: weblogs are not a framework) that make the



actual drudgery easier.







---







[1] http://aaronland.info/weblog/archive/5100

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