regarding RDF

[Adam M. Donahue]

Tim,

I just read your piece at XML.com on the RDF, 
and, using your, example, I want to make sure I 
have each part the RDF clear:

<RDF:Description 
href='http://www.textuality.com/RDF/WhyRDF.html'>
<Author>Tim Bray</Author> 
<Home-Page RDF:href='http://www.textuality.com' 
/>
</RDF:Description>

All right, let's see:

The resource being described here is the 
resource at location 
http://www.textuality.com/RDF/WhyRDF.html

The PropertyType resources here are Author and 
Home-Page.  The Property is Description.  It 
consists of the resource, the property types 
Author and Home-Page, and each one's 
corresponding value.  

Now, given that, we could perhaps add an id 
attribute to the RDF element, say, 
"description", and then further describe this 
entire property with something like:

<RDF:Indexer href="#description">
<Person>Adam Donahue</Person>
</RDF:Indexer>

Now the resource is the Description property, 
and the property type of *this* resource is 
Person, indicating here, for example, the person 
who indexed the original description.

Further, I could add an id attribute to the 
Person element, say, persontype, and then 
describe to a particular the Person PropertyType 
in the Indexer resource, like:

<RDF:Person href="#persontype">
<Desc>...</Desc>
</RDF:Person>

Now, if this is true, I'm a bit confused.  What 
if I have several <RDF:Indexer> elements in my 
document.  How do I describe, *in general*, a 
Person PropertyType?  It would appear that if I 
point to a particular instance (as in this 
example), it would only apply to this instance?  
Does this make sense?  That is, I have a unique 
ID as an attribute to the Person PropertyType in 
the above.  I am pointing to it in <RDF:Person 
href="..">, but this element only points to the 
ID of *that* particular Person PropertyType 
(namely, the one containing "Adam").  What if I 
have one with Bob?  And what if I just want to 
describe the PropertyType itself, in general?
I'm missing something here.  Please clarify...

Thanks,
Adam





mailto:adam at cyber-guru.com

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