Yesterday, I stumbled across an ebiz article by David Linthicum titled: RDF & Data Integration. Naturally, I
read it, and while reading encountered a number of inaccuracies
that compelled me to comment on the post.
Today, I revisited the same article -- and to my shock and
horror -- my comments do not exist (note: the site did accept my
comments yesterday!). Even more frustrating for me, I now have to
expend time I don't have re-writing my comments due to the depth
and danger of the inaccuracies in this post re. RDF in general.
Important Note to ebiz and David:
Please look into what happened to my comments. It's too early
for me to conclude that subjective censorship is a play on the
Web --
which isn't a hard copy journalistic format style of platform where
editors get away with such shenanigans. The Web is a sticky
database, and outer joining is well and truly functional (meaning:
exclusion and omission ultimately come back to bite via full outer
join query results against the Web DB).
By the way, if you publish the comments I made to the post
(yesterday), I will add a note to this post, accordingly.
Yes! David just confirmed to me via Twitter that this is yet another comment
system related issue and absolutely no intent to censor etc. His
words Twervatim :-)
For sake of clarity, I've itemized the inaccuracies and applied
my correction comments (inline) accordingly:
Inaccuracy #1:
Resource Description Framework (RDF), a part of the XML story,
provides interoperability between applications that exchange
information.
Correction #1:
RDF and XML are not inextricably linked in any way. RDF is part
Data Model (EAV/CR style Graph) with associated markup
and data serialization formats that include: N3, Turtle, TriX,
RDF/XML etc.
Inaccuracy #2:
RDF uses XML to define a foundation for processing metadata and
to provide a standard metadata infrastructure for both the Web and
the enterprise.
Correction #2:
RDF/XML is an XML based markup and data serialization format. As
a markup language it can be used for creating RDF model
records/statements (using Subject, Predicate, Object or Entity, Attribute, Value). As a serialization
format, it provides a mechanism for marshaling RDF data across data
managers and data consumers.
Inaccuracy #3:
The difference between the two is that XML is used to transport
data using a common format, while RDF is layered on top of XML
defining a broad category of data.
Correction #3:
See earlier corrections above.
Inaccuracy #4:
When the XML data is declared to be of the RDF format,
applications are then able to understand the data without
understanding who sent it.
Correction #4:
You do not declare data to be of RDF format. RDF isn't a format
it is a data model (as stated above). You can "up lift" or map data
from XML to RDF (hierarchical to graph model mapping). Likewise you
can "down shift" or map data from RDF to XML (example: SPARQL SELECT query patterns "down shift" to
SPARQL Results XML, which isn't RDF/XML, while keeping access to
graphs via URIs or Entity Identifiers that reside within the
serialization).
Inaccuracy #5:
RDF extends the XML model and syntax to be specified for
describing either resources or a collection of information. (XML
points to a resource in order to scope and uniquely identify a set
of properties known as the schema.).
Correction #5:
See earlier comments.
The single accurate paragraph in this ebiz article lies right at
the end and it states the following:
"I've always thought RDF has been underutilized
for data integration, and it's really an old standard. Now that
we're focused on both understanding and integrating data, perhaps
RDF should make a comeback."
Related: