[Geojson] Interesting comparison of JSON and RDF

[Allan Doyle]

My bit of a rant notwithstanding, I am not opposed to the notion of  
trying to be a good citizen about all of this. However, there's a  
little part of me that wants to go off into a corner and stick my  
fingers in my ears and hum.

I'm actually interested in learning how to better understand the  
implications of RDF and JDIL, so your comment on the blog posting is  
helpful.

	Allan

On Jul 27, 2007, at 11:26 , chris goad wrote:

> Hi Allan, Sean,
>
>>> I've never felt that GeoJSON should be put forward as a general
>>> purpose
>>> interchange format, and that's why I've resisted the RDF-isms of  
>>> JDIL.
>>
>
>
> I wasn't proposing that GeoJSON itself be formulated as a general  
> purpose format, but rather that minor GeoJSON details should  
> adjusted to allow its use in a more general context. This is  
> analogous to the GeoRSS GEO primitives being defined in such a way  
> that they can appear within an RSS feed - allowing people who want  
> to make geographical assertions about their content to do so even  
> if their content mentions things other than geography. Concretely  
> speaking, at Platial we use JSON as a basis for sending various  
> kinds of information around (commentary, photos, specialized data  
> about particular topics), and need something that we can mix in to  
> carry the geo content.
>
>
> In reply to Allan's comments:
>
>
> The art of mixing data from different sources is not arcane, nor is  
> it intrinsically tied to notions of  semantic nirvana - though it  
> may seem to be to listen to some hype. The technical notions are  
> trivial: 1) avoid name collisions by using long names (URIs)  
> instead of short ones; 2) to deal with the resulting versbosity,  
> define abbreviations (namespaces). This is old hat in the XML  
> world, and JDIL is an attempt to transplant this simple but useful  
> hack into JSON.
>
>
> As evidence that data-mixing and  namespaces are not just an  
> affectation of the semantic faithful, the Google Data APIs which  
> provide access to Google Base, Calendar, Spreadsheets, Picasa  Web  
> Albums etc use namespaces-per-app to mix the data from these  
> applications into Atom or JSON feeds.  (If that's not mainstream  
> what is?)
>
>
> GEO in particular can benefit hugely from data mixing - geographic  
> features always have non-geographic attributes that are of central  
> interest to one community or another : the strength as well as  
> position of earthquakes, the menu as well as address of a  
> restaurant.  IMHO, Geo format designers  should consider how  best  
> to fit into more general information flows rather than how best to  
> sequester their format in its purity!
>
>
> BTW, we will be using GeoJSON at platial - but might need to sully  
> it  with the occaisonal  "@"
>
>
> Final note: I commented on http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/ 
> the_limitations_of_json - trying to show that JSON  isn't limited  
> after all for the purpose of transporting RDF - if one should wish  
> to do that. Thanks for posting  the link.
>
>
> -- Chris
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Doyle" <adoyle at eogeo.org>
> To: <geojson at lists.geojson.org>
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [Geojson] Interesting comparison of JSON and RDF
>
>
>>
>> On Jul 26, 2007, at 11:13 , Sean Gillies wrote:
>>
>>> You may have read this already, else open it in a new tab and  
>>> read it
>>> when you get a chance.
>>>
>>> http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/the_limitations_of_json
>>>
>>> I've never felt that GeoJSON should be put forward as a general
>>> purpose
>>> interchange format, and that's why I've resisted the RDF-isms of  
>>> JDIL.
>>
>> I agree that GeoJSON isn't targeted at being a general purpose
>> interchange format. However, I also cringe every time I read
>> something like that blog posting.
>>
>> People keep thinking that if they only add a little more notation,
>> they will achieve semantic nirvana where there is no out-of-band
>> information needed and everything can just grok everything else.
>> Sure, adding namespaces like foaf: helps you along the way, but how
>> do people ever get anything done once they start indirecting
>> everything? It seems to me that the trend is towards late-binding so
>> that one doesn't have to commit immediately to nailing things down.
>> To truly achieve a semantic web, the binding may have to be
>> infinitely late. In the meantime, the early-binding constructs are
>> out there doing useful things.
>>
>> I think GeoJSON as is, or maybe even with the feature e stuff pulled
>> out is a fine piece of work and we should not be lulled into thinking
>> that just one more little bit of notation won't be so bad.
>>
>> Maybe it's because I started out life as a hardware designer. I feel
>> that when you're done, you should have something pretty self-
>> contained that just works, preferably in a deterministic way. Or
>> maybe I've ossified to the point where I just don't get it and the
>> young-uns will have to just move ahead without me.
>>
>> Allan
>>
>>>
>>> Sean
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Geojson mailing list
>>> Geojson at lists.geojson.org
>>> http://lists.geojson.org/listinfo.cgi/geojson-geojson.org
>>
>> -- 
>> Allan Doyle
>> +1.781.433.2695
>> adoyle at eogeo.org
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Geojson at lists.geojson.org
>> http://lists.geojson.org/listinfo.cgi/geojson-geojson.org
>

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org