Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: What is RDF?

Author:Ken MacLeod
Posted:8/21/2000; 9:03:05 AM
Topic:What is RDF?
Msg #:19874 (In response to 19859)
Prev/Next:19873 / 19875

RDF is "behind the curtain" type of stuff, I'm not sure if it matters that "RDF is too complicated by two orders of magnitude." If someone includes an RDF attribute in a doc design, it doesn't mean that one has to understand RDF just to use the attribute.

RDF is not redundant with HTML. While one can create a directed graph using *ML, you can't attach meanings to the links without some sort of common labeling of the links. RDF is one way to label links with their reason for linking.

So, while the vast majority of *ML users don't need to know what RDF is or how RDF works, what RDF is is a way to make explicit the meaning and relationship between elements so tools can be written to use those relationships (and hence, my vote for [a] foundation for The Semantic Web).



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