A generic RDF browser is not possible
I announced an RDF browser some days ago and I have more thoughts about this issue:
A generic RDF browser is not possible.
an RDF browser is possible, but it needs stylesheets.
It cannot be made, it will not be good and it is not needed.
Explaination:
A generic RDF browser is a piece of software that will display RDF like a web-browser. You can see it, read it, click it etc. It should generate a good representation of the contents, but without any rendering instructions (like css or xslt)
XML is also not rendered in a generic way. Never. IF you see xml, it is usually rendered using an XSLT to render it as HTML. But for each XML-Schema you will need a seperate XSLT.
The same with RDF: to render RDF, you need a kind of XSLT for every RDF-Schema around. So what we need is people like Masahide Kanzaki who do great XSLTs for RDF.
And a way to use these XSLTs. They may not actually be XSLT, it also may be a kind of XForms idea. We also need to use the RDF extension for XSLT (f.e. Damians Treehugger).
So: Do not try to make a generic RDF browser. Try to render the concrete RDF example you know of. Build something like FoafNaut.
A generic RDF browser is not possible.
an RDF browser is possible, but it needs stylesheets.
It cannot be made, it will not be good and it is not needed.
Explaination:
A generic RDF browser is a piece of software that will display RDF like a web-browser. You can see it, read it, click it etc. It should generate a good representation of the contents, but without any rendering instructions (like css or xslt)
XML is also not rendered in a generic way. Never. IF you see xml, it is usually rendered using an XSLT to render it as HTML. But for each XML-Schema you will need a seperate XSLT.
The same with RDF: to render RDF, you need a kind of XSLT for every RDF-Schema around. So what we need is people like Masahide Kanzaki who do great XSLTs for RDF.
And a way to use these XSLTs. They may not actually be XSLT, it also may be a kind of XForms idea. We also need to use the RDF extension for XSLT (f.e. Damians Treehugger).
So: Do not try to make a generic RDF browser. Try to render the concrete RDF example you know of. Build something like FoafNaut.
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leobard - 24. Sep, 14:51
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Adam (anonymous) - 21. Nov, 17:46
I disagree
While it would be hard, it would also be very cool. Maybe somone could make a generic RDF browser that works through XSLT "plugins" for different schemas. All the schema maintainers could also provide XSLTs. It's much easier to write an XSLT than it is to write a browser for every RDF schema.
I disagree