Re: RDF being phased out?

neil.stansbury () redbacksystems ! com wrote:
> Hey Axel,
> 
> I guess at the very least I just want it as it is!

I'm afraid that's the last thing you'll get.

> Personally, I don't have any issues with the current RDF API at all - 
> once mastered it works brilliantly - period. I think you've done a great 
> job on it.  Heck we can run and display a regex filter over a 100,000 
> child XUL tree built from a wrapped JS DS in about half a second! You'll 
> get no complaints here.
> 
>  From an API point of view, we've abstracted all the RDF API stuff 
> anyway into our own generic Object API that hides all the RDF 
> resources/literals/arcs etc and tracks which DS an assertion exists in. Eg:
> 
> var res1 = new Resource( STRINGURI_1 );
> var res2 = new Resource( STRINGURI_2 );
> var attr = res1.createAttribute( STRINGURI_3 )
> attr.value = "Something";
> res2.appendAttribute( attr );
> [or]
> attr.setLiteral( XMLSChemaTypeObject, Language ) // ANYURI is assumed to 
> be an RDFResource
> 
> 
> So we're already pretty abstracted from any potential RDF API changes.  
> My only longterm request would be xml:base and schema.
> 

Interesting. Are you doing anything on the query side of life?

> 
> For the record - we have just had our _entire_ application borked 
> because Mozilla decided to drop native SOAP support in 1.9, I'd much 
> rather have a slightly broken and eclectic API than none at all.  I've 
> just wasted 5 weeks of my life writing an entire SOAP API for all our 
> stuff - I don't fancy doing that to get back RDF support as well.  Give 
> me some bust XUL templates any day!
> 

Disclaimer upfront, I'm not doing RDF as my main objective, so I don't 
know if I'll be in charge of anything backwards compat here.

I really don't know what the exit path should be here. I guess for some 
use cases, some jsm or a component would suffice.

On the other hand, do we really need to re-implement all the 
historically grown cruft in our rdf template engine? That's kind-of the 
problem of rdf, there are so many things which could be prettier, just 
if it wasn't for the folks actually using the status quo. And Mozilla 2 
is the designated place to fix those.

> 
> Just wanted to say, if nothing else - I'm feeling the RDF love.

That'd be you, and you, and .... err .... you. Already 3 :-)

Axel

> 
> Axel Hecht wrote:
>> neil.stansbury () redbacksystems ! com wrote:
>>> Axel Hecht wrote:
>>>  > It depends. There are various different usages for RDF. Templates 
>>> would
>>>> be one, the docs for the new stuff for that are on MDC. Then the 
>>>> stuff that mailnews does wrt to RDF in Addressbook and friends, the 
>>>> rip out of that is part of the tb 3 design plan.
>>>>
>>>> Basically, RDF is phased out, but still used all over, so we're 
>>>> gradually moving over to not using it. That isn't really an overall 
>>>> plan, but more of an agenda, that's happening at the pace of the 
>>>> particular code pieces.
>>>>
>>>> Axel
>>>
>>> I have to say personally I think this is nothing short of a travesty.
>>>
>>> Although eclectic, RDF is a superb tool for many data apps and 
>>> achieves things that JSON and SQL will never be able to.
>>>
>>> 1. Is there a definitive time scale when we'll lose RDF support in 
>>> Mozilla - specifically XULRUnner?
>>
>> No, at least I haven't heard of one.
>>
>>> 2. Does anyone know of any other Open Source RDF impl that might be 
>>> able to replace the existing XPCOM one?
>>
>> RDF impl is the least thing. A savvy API? Played with that on 
>> http://hg.mozilla.org/users/axel_mozilla.com/index.cgi/rdf2/file/tip. 
>> The backend? Didn't mind too much, and it really makes sense to tune 
>> it to the API. An RDF/XML parsing/serialization framework? Turtle? 
>> Ntriples? Yet another thing.
>>
>> And of course, should the templates you're used to work on that 
>> engine? Or at least migrate nicely?
>>
>> What I'm trying to say, RDF is an almost as overloaded term as Mozilla 
>> is, so you should specify what you really want.
>>
>> Axel