3 ms·

What is "RDF" ? Not defined in the article

by retube 1y ago

jraph 1y ago
Resource Description Framework [1] is basically a way to describes resources with (subject, verb, object) predicates, where subject is the resource being described and object is another resource related to the subject in a way verb defines (verb is not necessarily a grammatical verb/action, it's often a property name). There are several formats to represent these predicates (Turtle), database implementations, query languages (SPARQL), and there are ontologies, which are schemas, basically, defining/describing what how to describe resource in some domain. It's highly related to the semantic web vision of the early 2000s. If you don't know about it, it is worth taking a few minutes to study it. It sometimes surfaces and it's nice to understand what's going on, it can give good design ideas, and it's an important piece of computer history. It's also the quiet basis for many things, OpenGraph [3] metadata tags in HTML documents are basically RDF for instance. (TIL about RDFa [4] btw, I had always seen these meta tags as very RDF-like, for a good reason indeed). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web [3] https://ogp.me/ https://ogp.me/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa
- pbronez 1y ago
  Also worth checking out schema.org, which provides a baseline ontology that pops up in many places https://schema.org/Thing https://schema.org/Thing
- rapnie 1y ago
  Does OpenGraph gain any benefit from its definition as linked data? Or might it just as well have been defined as, say, JSON Schema's and referring to those property names in html?
  - jraph 1y ago
    I'm not expert on OpenGraph, and it's been a while I've actually manipulated RDF other than the automatically generated og meta tags. I'd say defining this as linked data was quite idiomatic / elegant. It's possibly mainly because OpenGraph was inspired of Dublin Core [1], which was RDF-based. They didn't reinvent everything with OpenGraph, but kept the spirit, I suppose. In the end it's probably quite equivalent. And in this end, why not both? Apparently we defined an RDF ontology for JSON schemas! [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core [2] https://www.w3.org/2019/wot/json-schema https://www.w3.org/2019/wot/json-schema
- retube 1y ago
  Thanks vm for the detailed reply, most helpful!
vixen99 1y ago
We meet this casual use of acronyms all too often on HN. It only takes a line or two to enable everyone to follow along without recourse to a search expedition.
- jraph 1y ago
  You wouldn't spell out HyperText Markup Language each time. RDF is one of those things it's easy to assume everybody has already encountered. RDF feels fundamental. Its predicate triplet design is fundamental, almost obvious (in hindsight?). It could not have not existed. Had RDF not existed, something else very similar would have appeared, it's a certitude. But we might have reached a point where this assumption is quite false though. RDF and the semantic web were hot in the early 2000s, which was twenty years ago after all.
  - rapnie 1y ago
    Tim Berners-Lee, now co-founder of Inrupt [0], has launched Solid Project [1] where he kept working on semantic web concepts and linked data specs. Looks like Inrupt went full AI today. What ailed Solid was I think the academic approach mentioned in other comments, the heavy-weight specification process (inspired by W3C), and overlooking the fact that you better get your dev community on board and excited as a good road to adoption. Inrupt didn't spend much attention to their Solid community, except for the active followers in their chat channels, and were directly targeting commercial customers. I don't know the health of Solid project today, but there are a couple of interesting projects around social networking and the fediverse. [0] https://www.inrupt.com/about https://www.inrupt.com/about [1] https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/
    - mdhb 1y ago
      I wish more people would get on board with Solid, it would solve a lot of the surveillance capitalism problems that plague modern society. For what it’s worth, I think Solid is still very much “in development” and is a pre 1.0 thing no?
      - 1y ago

What is "RDF" ? Not defined in the article

by retube 1y ago

What is "RDF" ? Not defined in the article

Resource Description Framework [1] is basically a way to describes resources with (subject, verb, object) predicates, where subject is the resource being described and object is another resource related to the subject in a way verb defines (verb is not necessarily a grammatical verb/action, it's often a property name). There are several formats to represent these predicates (Turtle), database implementations, query languages (SPARQL), and there are ontologies, which are schemas, basically, defining/describing what how to describe resource in some domain. It's highly related to the semantic web vision of the early 2000s. If you don't know about it, it is worth taking a few minutes to study it. It sometimes surfaces and it's nice to understand what's going on, it can give good design ideas, and it's an important piece of computer history. It's also the quiet basis for many things, OpenGraph [3] metadata tags in HTML documents are basically RDF for instance. (TIL about RDFa [4] btw, I had always seen these meta tags as very RDF-like, for a good reason indeed). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web [3] https://ogp.me/ https://ogp.me/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa

pbronez 1y ago
Also worth checking out schema.org, which provides a baseline ontology that pops up in many places https://schema.org/Thing https://schema.org/Thing
rapnie 1y ago
Does OpenGraph gain any benefit from its definition as linked data? Or might it just as well have been defined as, say, JSON Schema's and referring to those property names in html?
- jraph 1y ago
  I'm not expert on OpenGraph, and it's been a while I've actually manipulated RDF other than the automatically generated og meta tags. I'd say defining this as linked data was quite idiomatic / elegant. It's possibly mainly because OpenGraph was inspired of Dublin Core [1], which was RDF-based. They didn't reinvent everything with OpenGraph, but kept the spirit, I suppose. In the end it's probably quite equivalent. And in this end, why not both? Apparently we defined an RDF ontology for JSON schemas! [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core [2] https://www.w3.org/2019/wot/json-schema https://www.w3.org/2019/wot/json-schema
retube 1y ago
Thanks vm for the detailed reply, most helpful!

vixen99 1y ago

We meet this casual use of acronyms all too often on HN. It only takes a line or two to enable everyone to follow along without recourse to a search expedition.

jraph 1y ago
You wouldn't spell out HyperText Markup Language each time. RDF is one of those things it's easy to assume everybody has already encountered. RDF feels fundamental. Its predicate triplet design is fundamental, almost obvious (in hindsight?). It could not have not existed. Had RDF not existed, something else very similar would have appeared, it's a certitude. But we might have reached a point where this assumption is quite false though. RDF and the semantic web were hot in the early 2000s, which was twenty years ago after all.
- rapnie 1y ago
  Tim Berners-Lee, now co-founder of Inrupt [0], has launched Solid Project [1] where he kept working on semantic web concepts and linked data specs. Looks like Inrupt went full AI today. What ailed Solid was I think the academic approach mentioned in other comments, the heavy-weight specification process (inspired by W3C), and overlooking the fact that you better get your dev community on board and excited as a good road to adoption. Inrupt didn't spend much attention to their Solid community, except for the active followers in their chat channels, and were directly targeting commercial customers. I don't know the health of Solid project today, but there are a couple of interesting projects around social networking and the fediverse. [0] https://www.inrupt.com/about https://www.inrupt.com/about [1] https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/
  - mdhb 1y ago
    I wish more people would get on board with Solid, it would solve a lot of the surveillance capitalism problems that plague modern society. For what it’s worth, I think Solid is still very much “in development” and is a pre 1.0 thing no?
    - 1y ago