[oslc-core] Some Topics for Discussion Today

[Steve K Speicher]

Dave <snoopdave at gmail.com> wrote on 05/27/2010 08:36:21 AM:

[snip]
 
> > 2. Our use of Dublin Core namespace prefixes seems a little 
inconsistent
> > with common practice. We are using the newer terms namespace,
> > http://purl.org/dc/terms/ instead of the legacy elements namespace
> > http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/. However, the usual prefix for the 
terms
> > namespace seems to be dcterms: while the elements namespace uses dc:. 
 I
> > suggest we adopt this convention and use dcterms: as the predefined 
and
> > recommended prefix. See [1]
> 
> I wrote this up on the issues page. Here's what I wrote for the 
resolution:
> 
> Response: this is not a new situation, the old v1 specs used the new
> namespace and the old prefix too. We seem to have two options now:
> 1) Continue to use the new Dublin Core namespace and to use the old
> "dc" prefix. Pros: no change to implementations, won't break badly
> behaved clients who have hardcoded the namespace prefix. Cons: does
> not follow Dublin Core conventions
> 2) Switch to using the new "dcterms" prefix. Pros: follows Dublin Core
> conventions. Cons: could break badly behaved clients.
> 
> After writing that I think changing is a bad idea. Here's why.
> 
> In theory, recommending "dcterms" as the prefix won't break
> implementations because XML parsing tools can handle any prefix for a
> namespace -- so this change should be no problem. But, in practice, I
> worry that we may have some badly behaved implementations, that we had
> no way to declaring prefixes in query URIs and that we had no way to
> declare prefixes in our JSON representations -- so query URIs and JSON
> representations could be broken by this change.
> 
> And, according to that same theory, we should be able to stick with
> the old "dc" prefix because XML parsing tools can use any prefix for a
> namespace. We won't break existing implementations if we stick with as
> the "suggested prefix" for Dublin Core elements. So, why change
> anything?
> 
> Maybe I'm not understanding the benefits of making this change. Are
> there more "pros" to changing than what I have listed?
> 

I agree that we should stick to using "dc".  I don't think we have any of 
the DC legacy issues to be concerned about.

> 
[snip]


Steve Speicher | IBM Rational Software | (919) 254-0645
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://open-services.net/pipermail/oslc-core_open-services.net/attachments/20100528/0b870577/attachment-0003.html>