[Zope-dev] RDF Musings and TinyTables

Tim Hoffman THoffman@dpc.wa.gov.au
21 Feb 2003 10:06:05 +0800


Hi Shane

In case your not aware Chandler OSAfoundation is basing their 
new PIM on RDF/ZODB/Python etc...

if you haven't already it might be worth having a look at how they see
RDF fitting into the picture.

http://www.osafoundation.org/Chandler_rel._0.1.htm

See ya

Tim


On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 03:21, Shane Hathaway wrote:
> I just read the RDF article published here:
> 
> http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/02/12/rdflib.html
> 
> I've understood the mechanics of RDF for a while, but never understood 
> what makes it better than what we already have.  Now I think I get it: 
> RDF theory is a new kind of database abstraction.  It's similar to a 
> relational database in that you put pieces of data into the database and 
> later search for data.  But it's much more ad-hoc than a relational 
> database.
> 
> Serialization of RDF into XML and the relationship between RDF and the 
> Semantic Web are distinct concepts from RDF theory.
> 
> This ad-hoc data storage made me think of TinyTables.  TinyTables is a 
> good Zope product that fills the need for simple tables of data, but it 
> needs attention.  What if it got replaced by some Zope product called 
> "RDFBucket"?  An RDFBucket object would let you input data in a variety 
> of ways, including object introspection, forms, and XML with embedded 
> RDF.  It would let you run queries similar to ZCatalog.  Maybe it would 
> also generate RDF for embedding metadata in web pages.
> 
> I'm wondering if I'm thinking in line with RDF theory, or if I've veered 
> off track.  If you're familiar with RDF: What do you think?
> 
> Shane
> 
> 
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