IRC log of rdfa on 2009-04-02

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:51:00 [RRSAgent]
RRSAgent has joined #rdfa
14:51:00 [RRSAgent]
logging to http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-irc
14:51:07 [Ralph]
Meeting: RDF-in-XHTML Task Force
14:51:15 [Ralph]
agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2009Apr/0018.html
14:51:45 [Ralph]
-> http://www.w3.org/2009/03/19-rdfa-minutes.html previous 2009-03-19
14:52:15 [Ralph]
regrets+ Michael
14:52:34 [Ralph]
regrets+ Ben_Adida
14:52:38 [Ralph]
regrets+ Michael_Hausenblas
14:52:49 [Ralph]
regrets- Michael
14:53:06 [Ralph]
rrsagent, please make record public
15:01:19 [Zakim]
SW_SWD(RDFa)11:00AM has now started
15:01:26 [Zakim]
+Ralph
15:01:46 [markbirbeck]
markbirbeck has joined #rdfa
15:02:14 [Zakim]
+??P27
15:02:25 [msporny]
zakim, I am ??P27
15:02:36 [Zakim]
+msporny; got it
15:04:32 [ShaneM]
ShaneM has joined #rdfa
15:04:43 [ShaneM]
laptop has gone deeply insane - wokring on it
15:05:49 [Zakim]
+ShaneM
15:06:31 [Ralph]
chair: Manu
15:06:34 [msporny]
http://www.w3.org/2009/03/19-rdfa-minutes.html
15:06:51 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Ben to put up information on "how to write RDFa" with screencast possibly and instructions on bookmarklet. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/11/06-rdfa-minutes.html#action12]
15:06:57 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Jeremy to demonstrate GRDDL with XHTML/RDFa once the NS URI is set up. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action03]
15:07:46 [Ralph]
ACTION: Manu to look at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2008Dec/0037.html about resolving relative URIs [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/01/08-rdfa-minutes.html#action15]
15:07:54 [Ralph]
Manu: I've replied and asked twice for a response
15:08:11 [Ralph]
... I think they're accepting the response
15:08:16 [Ralph]
... so I think we can consider this done
15:08:20 [Ralph]
--done
15:08:26 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Manu to write summary for Semantic Web Use Cases for Ivan. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action09]
15:08:39 [Ralph]
ACTION: Mark create base wizard suitable for cloning [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action12]
15:08:53 [msporny]
Mark, are you going to dial in soon? We're at your action items...
15:09:13 [Ralph]
i|http://www.w3.org/2009/03/19-rdfa-minutes.html|Topic: Action Review
15:09:21 [markbirbeck]
I'm about to dial in.
15:09:29 [markbirbeck]
However, I have no updates on my actions.
15:09:31 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-minutes.html Ralph
15:09:32 [Ralph]
-- continues
15:09:44 [Ralph]
[DONE] ACTION: Mark to review reasoning on setting explicit about="" on HEAD and BODY [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/12/18-rdfa-irc]
15:09:54 [markbirbeck]
Oh...other than that one. :)
15:10:15 [Ralph]
-> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2009Apr/0000.html The implied @about="": Explanation and some problems [Mark Birbeck 2009-04-01]
15:10:22 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Mark to send Ben ubiquity related wizard stuff [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/11/20-rdfa-minutes.html#action11]
15:10:25 [markbirbeck]
zakim, code?
15:10:25 [Zakim]
the conference code is 7332 (tel:+1.617.761.6200 tel:+33.4.89.06.34.99 tel:+44.117.370.6152), markbirbeck
15:10:26 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Mark write foaf examples for wiki [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action13]
15:10:32 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Michael to create 'RDFa for uF users' on RDFa Wiki [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action14]
15:10:43 [Ralph]
ACTION: Ralph or Steven fix the .htaccess for the XHTML namespace [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/01/08-rdfa-minutes.html#action01]
15:11:02 [Zakim]
+??P4
15:11:04 [Ralph]
Ralph: I know Steven poked someone about this
15:11:08 [markbirbeck]
zakim, i am ?
15:11:08 [Zakim]
+markbirbeck; got it
15:11:09 [Ralph]
-- continues
15:11:13 [Ralph]
[PENDING] ACTION: Ralph think about RSS+RDFa [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action15]
15:12:36 [Ralph]
Topic: Report on AC Meeting
15:12:54 [Ralph]
Manu: anyone there for the HTML discussions than Ben and Steven?
15:13:04 [Ralph]
Shane: unfortunately Ben couldn't stay for the breakout session
15:13:18 [Ralph]
Mark: the minutes suggest the discussion was quite positive
15:14:02 [Ralph]
Ralph: I needed to participate in a different breakout
15:14:14 [Ralph]
Mark: I'm looking at the minutes of the Backplane XG
15:15:39 [Ralph]
Shane: there appears to be substantial support from the Membership for the extensibility model that XHTML has always had
15:16:45 [Ralph]
Topic: @prefix syntax discussion
15:17:10 [Ralph]
Manu: at our last discussion, Shane and Ralph were favoring the '=' syntax and Mark and I were favoring the JSON-esque syntax
15:17:29 [Ralph]
... any new thoughts in the subsequent 2 weeks?
15:18:16 [Ralph]
Mark: I'm involved in a couple of projects where folk are producing what they think is RDFa
15:19:09 [Ralph]
... it's interesting; I see a growing need for tools to check the work
15:19:18 [Zakim]
-ShaneM
15:20:28 [Ralph]
... simply typos like mismatch between namespace declaration and usage
15:20:48 [Zakim]
+??P0
15:20:50 [ShaneM]
ShaneM has joined #rdfa
15:21:51 [Ralph]
Ralph: no real additional thoughts but I did make note of Mark's concerns about the pattern @attr="prefix=value"
15:22:03 [Ralph]
... but if tools are generating this anyway, how much does it matter?
15:22:16 [Ralph]
Mark: I'm thinking of checking tools more than generation tools
15:22:39 [Ralph]
Manu: definitely think embedded '=' will cause confusion
15:22:55 [Ralph]
... and people will put whitespace around the '='
15:23:05 [Ralph]
... so we need resilient syntaxes and parsers
15:23:36 [Ralph]
Shane: I don't think it's terribly important to have delimiters other than whitespace between the items
15:23:45 [Ralph]
... but I won't fight on that
15:23:56 [Ralph]
... I understand the sensitivity to the repeated '=' issue
15:24:00 [Ralph]
... do you prefer ':'?
15:24:01 [Ralph]
Manu: yes
15:24:17 [Ralph]
Shane: that's probably fine, but then you end up with repeated ':'
15:24:26 [ShaneM]
perfix="xhv:http:..."
15:25:03 [Ralph]
Shane: I leaned toward repeated '=' in the first place because that made it clear which was the prefix and which was the rest
15:25:07 [markbirbeck]
prefix="xhv:xyz dc:xyz"
15:25:13 [markbirbeck]
prefix="xhv=xyz dc=xyz"
15:25:25 [Ralph]
Mark: we're tending to discuss as if ^ were the patterns
15:25:43 [Ralph]
... this is how @xml:schemalocation works
15:25:44 [markbirbeck]
prefix="
15:25:45 [markbirbeck]
xhv: xyz,
15:25:45 [markbirbeck]
dc: xyz
15:25:45 [markbirbeck]
"
15:26:02 [Ralph]
Mark: I'm thinking we should really be looking at layout such as ^
15:26:16 [Ralph]
... in this case, additional delimiters are useful; we don't need to be compact
15:26:37 [Ralph]
... we should consider not just a syntax but also examples that people will cut & paste
15:27:15 [Ralph]
... if I were to copy one of Manu's audio prefix examples I could select a single line (of many declarations) and insert it into my list without introducing error
15:27:26 [Ralph]
... once you spread things out like this, why not allow further flexibility
15:27:27 [markbirbeck]
prefix="
15:27:27 [markbirbeck]
"xhv": 'xy z',
15:27:27 [markbirbeck]
dc: xyz
15:27:28 [markbirbeck]
"
15:27:42 [markbirbeck]
prefix="
15:27:43 [markbirbeck]
'xhv': 'xy z',
15:27:43 [markbirbeck]
dc: xyz
15:27:43 [markbirbeck]
"
15:28:12 [Ralph]
Shane: my concern is that URIs allow these characters, so the syntax rules and the parsing are both more challenging
15:28:24 [Ralph]
Mark: yes, but there are extra options for delimiting
15:28:49 [Ralph]
... if we say we're allowing quotes _as well_ this gives additional flexibility
15:28:50 [markbirbeck]
prefix="
15:28:50 [markbirbeck]
'xhv': 'xy z,',
15:28:51 [markbirbeck]
dc: xyz
15:28:51 [markbirbeck]
"
15:29:17 [Ralph]
Mark: if you did have a URI that ends in ',' then quoting allows an easy way to include it
15:29:45 [Ralph]
... ':' in @xmlns was really an effort to find one thing that would work
15:30:00 [Ralph]
... but we have greater flexibility
15:30:24 [Ralph]
Manu: when people mint prefix mapping URIs I find it highly unlikely that they'll use a ',' in such a URI
15:30:57 [Ralph]
... yes, it _could_ happen but if it's a well-known design consideration that such characters cause trouble then vocabulary developers can avoid them
15:30:57 [ShaneM]
q+ to talk about embedding commas
15:31:05 [Ralph]
Mark: what is the added complexity?
15:31:21 [Ralph]
Manu: it's additional complexity in the parser. I'm questioning whether we really need it.
15:31:28 [Ralph]
Mark: it's one regular expression
15:31:51 [Ralph]
... a way of trying to introduce resilience and something that [humans] can grok easily
15:32:09 [Ralph]
... we come back to this problem of recognizing what is a URI
15:32:36 [Ralph]
... I'm just thinking of ways to provide resilience when needed without mandating it all the time
15:32:44 [markbirbeck]
prefix="
15:32:45 [markbirbeck]
xhv: {xy z,},
15:32:45 [markbirbeck]
dc: xyz
15:32:45 [markbirbeck]
"
15:33:04 [Ralph]
Manu: I'd like to see the regex
15:33:32 [Ralph]
... my C+sax-based parser doesn't have to use regex's anywhere right now
15:33:46 [Ralph]
Mark: a space-separated list needs to be cracked into a list
15:33:54 [Ralph]
... even '=' can appear in a URI
15:33:55 [ShaneM]
index
15:34:06 [Ralph]
index()
15:34:07 [Ralph]
:)
15:34:28 [Ralph]
Manu: I don't think we can count on authors writing examples consistently
15:34:39 [Ralph]
... and a mixture of styles will cause confusion
15:35:00 [Ralph]
Mark: I'm proposing the _possibility_ of permitting this richer format, not _requiring_ it
15:35:46 [Ralph]
Manu: I was only questioning whether example authors will really write the examples with multi-line declarations
15:35:52 [markbirbeck]
prefix="xhv: xy, dc: xyz"
15:36:08 [Ralph]
... when the examples are written on a single line the richer syntax becomes confusing
15:36:29 [Ralph]
Mark: consider space-separated lists
15:36:30 [markbirbeck]
prefix="xhv:xy dc:xyz"
15:36:41 [Ralph]
... then you can't have space around ':'
15:36:53 [Ralph]
... the options for authors laying out the markup are limited
15:37:31 [Ralph]
... no flexibility for aligning things [in columns]
15:38:12 [Ralph]
... whereas the XML attribute syntax has a lot of flexibility, for example; can use whitespace to nudge things [into columns]
15:38:40 [Ralph]
... in terms of consistency, generally in XML spaces are ignored
15:39:03 [Ralph]
... other than the use in XML Schema to create lists, whitespace is not significant
15:39:20 [Ralph]
Shane: whitespace is collapsed, not ignored
15:39:25 [Ralph]
... this includes newlines
15:39:37 [Ralph]
... collapsing inside attributes values
15:39:49 [Ralph]
... however, this is bad; in the HTML DOM whitespace is not collapsed
15:40:12 [Ralph]
... this means a parser that has to work with both XML and HTML has to be written to expect multiple whitespace
15:40:34 [Ralph]
Mark; but the presence of whitespace is geenerally not significant
15:40:39 [Ralph]
s/;/:
15:40:53 [Ralph]
... as long as there is whitespace in key places, such as between attributes
15:41:13 [Ralph]
... '=' vs. ':' is a separate discussion from whether whitespace is a delimiter
15:41:28 [Ralph]
Manu: I agree; we shouldn't decide solely on whitespace
15:41:41 [msporny]
prefix="xhv:xy, dc:xyz" prefix="xhv:xy; dc:xyz"
15:41:55 [Ralph]
... for delimiters between mappings, we're considering something like ^
15:42:17 [Ralph]
Shane: a lot of our canonical examples are ones that contain ','; e.g. Wikipedia or Amazon
15:42:29 [Ralph]
... places where, for example, an ISBN might be interpolated
15:42:45 [msporny]
prefix="media: http://purl.org/media#, audio: http://purl.org/media/audio#"
15:42:53 [Ralph]
Mark: yeah, can't quickly come up with an example
15:43:02 [markbirbeck]
mapping, mapping, mapping
15:43:12 [Ralph]
Mark: should treat as ^
15:43:22 [Ralph]
... then decide what goes inside 'mapping'
15:43:32 [msporny]
prefix="media: http://purl.org/media# ; audio : http://purl.org/media/audio#"
15:43:41 [Ralph]
Shane: can't just be 'ends in ,' -- must be 'includes ,'
15:44:18 [Ralph]
Manu: are Shane and Ralph ok with using ',' between mappings?
15:44:30 [Ralph]
Shane: if we're going to use ',' or ';' we need to define the escaping mechanism
15:44:41 [Ralph]
... maybe there's already a mechanism defined somewhere
15:45:01 [Ralph]
... my preferred syntax is identical to schemalocation but Ralph says that's a non-starter
15:45:15 [Ralph]
Manu: ok to pick a character that must be URI-encoded in URIs?
15:45:37 [msporny]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
15:45:42 [Ralph]
Mark: every time I look at the URI spec I find it allows more characters than I expected
15:46:08 [Ralph]
... this discussion is pretty much the same discussion the @xmlns folk had to go through
15:47:07 [Ralph]
Manu: we could require that reserved characters must be %-encoded
15:47:18 [Ralph]
... but that makes everything harder
15:47:27 [Ralph]
Mark: and we'd have to avoid a requirement to double-encode
15:47:36 [Ralph]
... we need a non-reserved character
15:47:39 [Ralph]
Shane: good luck with that!
15:47:48 [Ralph]
... remember that in the case of CURIE it's a IRI
15:47:57 [Ralph]
... so even a bigger set of non-reserved character
15:48:14 [Ralph]
... the only reserved character is space
15:48:37 [Ralph]
... even schemalocation cheated by not using '=' or ':'; they just use alternation
15:48:56 [Ralph]
... the problem with alternation is that we can't do anything clever with default or absent prefixes
15:49:12 [Ralph]
... but maybe we don't need such rules
15:49:29 [msporny]
prefix="a=b x=y"
15:50:39 [ShaneM]
wow.... we already have this problem!
15:50:42 [Ralph]
Mark: if we needed @prefix on every element then perhaps we might go with [the '=' syntax]
15:50:52 [ShaneM]
xmlns:foo="URI" what happens if URI contains a quotation mark?
15:50:53 [Ralph]
... but perhaps we don't need that flexibility; be more restrictive
15:51:16 [Ralph]
... put everything in the head or having a predicate indicating a prefix mapping
15:51:31 [Ralph]
Ralhp: predicate as in RDF predicate?
15:51:33 [Ralph]
Mark: yes
15:51:41 [ShaneM]
<meta rel="prefix" name="foo" resource="URI" />
15:51:57 [Ralph]
... however I didn't like that syntax as it puts meta information in the same graph as 'ordinary' information, which feels wrong
15:52:22 [Ralph]
... I'm looking for something that is "cut-and-paste reliable"
15:53:05 [Ralph]
Ralph: Creative Commons would not accept restrictions on where mappings can be declared
15:53:57 [Ralph]
Shane: separate two issues; 1. can we provide an alternative to @xmlns that would be acceptable beyond the XML community and 2. how do we make it easier for our constituents to use RDFa in ways @@
15:54:36 [Ralph]
s/ways @@/easier ways
15:54:49 [Ralph]
... we've talked about having external documents that declare prefixes
15:55:13 [Ralph]
... perhaps even with some well-known prefix declarations
15:55:34 [Ralph]
... maybe we'll make more progress by not trying to find a single solution to these two objectives
15:55:44 [Ralph]
Mark: so do we need a lot of flexibility?
15:55:55 [Ralph]
... find just enough flexibility for the goals at hand
15:56:12 [ShaneM]
We should try hard to NOT over-engineer this solution without having the requirements in mind!
15:56:17 [Ralph]
Manu: the second idea is that there's an @profile value that pulls in external mapping declarations
15:56:48 [Ralph]
Mark: 1 is the namespace thing and 2 is ease of authoring
15:57:35 [Ralph]
Shane: consider CSS syntax as an example of going too far; e.g. borders on table cells -- totally different behavior depending on how many values are supplied
15:57:45 [markbirbeck]
dc: url(xyz)
15:57:49 [Ralph]
Mark: I've just thought of another syntax!
15:58:43 [Ralph]
Ralph: and it may be that the @xmlns problem will go away
15:58:55 [markbirbeck]
Continuing Shane's point, why not 'solve' this:
15:58:57 [markbirbeck]
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcREL
16:00:19 [Ralph]
Mark: pick an example of something people will frequently want to copy and paste; e.g. ccRel
16:00:30 [Ralph]
... the simple example [in ccRel] is interesting
16:00:51 [Ralph]
... it just says some other mechanism has defined the token
16:01:41 [Ralph]
... consider the lengthier scenarios; what other ways are there to address these?
16:01:57 [Ralph]
Manu: any of our proposed syntaxes would handle these examples fairly cleanly
16:02:22 [msporny]
prefix="a = b x = y"
16:02:24 [Ralph]
Ralph: yeah, it's the ugly corner cases like ',' in URIs that are a problem
16:02:29 [msporny]
prefix="a=b x=y"
16:02:35 [Ralph]
Shane: even quote is already an issue
16:02:55 [Ralph]
Manu: a simple state machine will handle the '=' syntax
16:03:22 [ShaneM]
prefix="
16:03:22 [ShaneM]
a = b
16:03:22 [ShaneM]
x = y
16:03:22 [ShaneM]
"
16:03:23 [Ralph]
... I see the argument for an extensible syntax that could support every use case but I wonder if [that flexiblity] will ever be used
16:03:38 [Ralph]
... we're trying to solve a very simple problem
16:04:01 [Ralph]
Shane: Mark's desire to make this legible can easily be written using the '=' syntax
16:04:07 [markbirbeck]
Shane don't we do this: xmlns:a="&quot;b&quot;"
16:04:08 [Ralph]
... we can easily deal with extra whitespace
16:04:28 [markbirbeck]
a = http://example.org?a=b
16:04:46 [ShaneM]
(.*")\s*=\s*(.*?)\s+
16:05:05 [markbirbeck]
prefix="a = http://example.org?a=b&c=d"
16:07:11 [Ralph]
Manu: I'm leaning toward preferring this solution
16:07:17 [Ralph]
... straightforward and easy to implement
16:07:25 [ShaneM]
actually - can't use \s... need [\s\r\n]
16:07:32 [Ralph]
... don't think there's much danger of authors confusing the syntax in the markup
16:08:05 [Zakim]
-msporny
16:08:06 [Zakim]
-markbirbeck
16:08:09 [Ralph]
next meeting: 2 weeks (April 16)
16:08:11 [Ralph]
[adjourned]
16:08:21 [ShaneM]
(.*)[\s\r\n]*=[\s\r\n]*(.*?)[\s\r\n]+
16:08:25 [Ralph]
rrsagent, please draft minutes
16:08:25 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-minutes.html Ralph
16:10:08 [Zakim]
-Ralph
16:10:10 [Zakim]
-??P0
16:10:11 [Zakim]
SW_SWD(RDFa)11:00AM has ended
16:10:13 [Zakim]
Attendees were Ralph, msporny, ShaneM, markbirbeck
16:10:26 [Ralph]
rrsagent, please draft minutes
16:10:26 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-minutes.html Ralph
16:14:21 [Ralph]
zakim, bye
16:14:21 [Zakim]
Zakim has left #rdfa
16:14:23 [Ralph]
rrsagent, bye
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
I see 3 open action items saved in http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-actions.rdf :
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Manu to look at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2008Dec/0037.html about resolving relative URIs [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/01/08-rdfa-minutes.html#action15] [1]
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-irc#T15-07-46
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Mark create base wizard suitable for cloning [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/09/11-rdfa-minutes.html#action12] [2]
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-irc#T15-08-39
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
ACTION: Ralph or Steven fix the .htaccess for the XHTML namespace [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/01/08-rdfa-minutes.html#action01] [3]
16:14:23 [RRSAgent]
recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-rdfa-irc#T15-10-43