Expressing XLink concepts in XML Schema

[Didier PH Martin]

Hi James,

James said:
Actually, there seems to be a lot of conceptual overlap between XLink and
the RDF model/syntax.

Didier says:
This is because some are stretching too much the utility of RDF. At its
origin, RDF has been designed as a metadata encoding tool. This is why you
have the following construct
<rdf:description about="http://www.netfolder.com/index.html">
... put here a set of properties/values like for instance the Dublin core or
AGLS record...
</rdf:description>

So, on one hand you have the resource located somewhere and on the other
hand, metadata providing more info about the resource.

Xlink, is designed to link resources thus, for instance, to establish a link
between a document fragment and an other document fragment. We have here, in
fact, resource linkage.

So, if we do not do like kids that received a do-it-yourself kit for
Christmas and start a quest for nails for our brand new hammer, we can use
the tool for what they where intended to - which is:
a) rdf for metadata - to add information to existing resources
b) xlink for resource linkage - to link resources

This said, we'll have more and more similarities because:
a) all these languages are XML based,
b) we start to see now some common sub languages used across different tools
like for instance XPath and XPointer (re-united) and the string based
pointer language used in other XML based languages.

James said:
Also between XML Schemas and RDF Schemas.

Didier says:
Yes and this is good news because having a single schema language is more
intelligent than having to still live in the Babel tower.

regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind at netfolder.com
http://www.netfolder.com


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