[Zope-dev] RDF Musings and TinyTables

Shane Hathaway shane@zope.com
Tue, 18 Feb 2003 14:21:17 -0500


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