IRC log of rdf-dir-literal on 2019-09-18

Timestamps are in UTC.

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logging to https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-irc
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RRSAgent, make logs public
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koalie has changed the topic to: https://w3c.github.io/tpac-breakouts/sessions.html
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logging to https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-irc
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07:32:07 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison_
07:32:27 [addison_]
Meeting: RDF dir literal (TPAC 2019 breakout)
07:32:32 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison_
07:33:59 [chaals1]
Meeting: RDF directional Literals
07:34:02 [addison_]
https://w3c.github.io/rdf-dir-literal/draft-charter.html
07:34:36 [addison_]
https://w3c.github.io/string-meta/#
07:35:12 [chaals1]
present+
07:35:24 [addison_]
present+
07:35:41 [chaals1]
present+ RobSanderson, MartinDuerst, AddisonPhilipps, IvanHerman, r12a
07:36:05 [chaals]
Topic: What the problem is...
07:37:04 [chaals]
[r12a show slides, where arabic rendering is broken]
07:37:33 [chaals]
r12a: inline runs have the right direction, but the segments are ordered incorrectly
07:38:39 [chaals]
… if we had said <textarea dir="auto" then it would have got the right base direction, and the segments would be ordered correctly.
07:40:55 [chaals]
… but then it needs to have the algorithm applied everywhere
07:42:10 [chaals]
MM: Unicode used to have a character to specify base direction?
07:42:14 [chaals]
MD: Still does.
07:42:29 [azaroth_]
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07:42:37 [chaals]
RI: You can insert the unicode character at the start of the string. But that's hard.
07:42:44 [azaroth_]
present+ Rob_Sanderson
07:42:45 [chaals]
DB: Does copying pick it up?
07:42:51 [cathiechen]
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07:43:00 [chaals]
[sometimes… and sometimes not]
07:43:40 [chaals]
[and you an't see it so you don't know if it is there, or where it is, and it goes wrong in many and wonderful ways]
07:44:28 [chaals]
r12a: there are new isolating characters in unicode. But they don't work in deployment.
07:45:50 [chaals]
Addison: it prevents spillover effects, but it doesn't solve the rest of the problems - like needing to have a direction anyway.
07:46:34 [azaroth_]
present+ bigbluehat
07:46:39 [azaroth_]
present+ ivan
07:46:43 [chaals]
chaals: and it's still a magic invisible character
07:46:45 [azaroth_]
present+ danbri
07:46:58 [azaroth_]
present+ gkellogg
07:46:59 [chaals]
rrsagent, make logs public
07:47:18 [azaroth_]
rrsagent, draft minutes
07:47:18 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html azaroth_
07:47:20 [chaals]
present+ Mohd_Saleem
07:47:28 [duerst]
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07:47:42 [chaals]
r12a: Ivan has a document that suggests various approaches that could ber used in RDF
07:48:16 [chaals]
-> https://w3c.github.io/rdf-dir-literal/ a document that looks at possible solutions
07:48:42 [chaals]
Topic: what happened...
07:49:05 [chaals]
Ivan: there is no problem if you only use JSON, you can just figure it out for yourself.
07:49:21 [chaals]
… JSON-LD cannot solve it, because JSON is only one serialisation of RDF and has to match RDF.
07:50:28 [chaals]
danbri: In ancient times we decided to be careful and stick with the mistakes we made before
07:50:41 [chaals]
Ivan: So, you don't have a way of labeling direction of a string.
07:51:10 [chaals]
… so there was a discussion of how we could fix that.
07:51:39 [chaals]
… so we described three solutions, one of which is the unicode character thing we have already explained as a bad idea.
07:52:03 [chaals]
… One approach was to extend language tags, which was received with horror and hopefully convinced people not to do it.
07:52:40 [chaals]
danbri: what if we made the language a space-separated microsyntax in the lang field.
07:53:36 [chaals]
addison_: we did raise that idea. It would leak into the world beyond RDF. Maybe using a space would be a better version of that.
07:54:06 [chaals]
ivan: We looked at RDF solutions. The obvious one was to go back and fix RDF by adding direction info and letting it cascade through the system.
07:54:39 [chaals]
… another alternative was to define a new datatype for wellThoughtOutStrings that had the information they needed.
07:54:50 [azaroth]
I think space would break turtle syntax: <> rdfs:label "Rob Sanderson"@en ltr .
07:54:58 [azaroth]
Would misparse horribly
07:55:03 [chaals]
…it wasn't nice, but worked.
07:56:03 [chaals]
… and the latest one is a compoundLiteral. instead of special syntax, we replace the literal by a blank node with a value, language, direction, …
07:56:38 [chaals]
… It was felt that fixing the core would be the best approach. We made a draft charter and put it out for feedback.
07:57:25 [chaals]
… and pulling on a loose string in the core of RDF leads to a lot of cascading required work in a lot of places.
07:57:57 [chaals]
… and in particular, you have to update a lot of implementations.
07:58:10 [chaals]
… And the community said
07:58:15 [chaals]
[crickets]
07:58:50 [chaals]
Ivan: Andy Seabourne came back with Compound literal. So the RDF community is not aware of the problem apparently.
07:59:58 [azaroth]
danbri: It's a lot of work to move the eiffel tower 2 centimeters
08:00:16 [chaals]
danbri: it's not about hanging the specs, you need to talk to the people who are building sparql databases, and that is a lot of real work.
08:00:40 [chaals]
gkellogg: Any solution requires doing something.
08:01:13 [chaals]
ivan: the decision is that we cannot start up a working group to make the changes to the core spec.
08:01:30 [chaals]
… so that's where we are. We still have the problem. What can we do?
08:02:19 [chaals]
… the advantage of all the other solutions is they require no changes to the core implementations, and users could solve the problem, by moving to new terms or datatypes.
08:02:59 [chaals]
… Which solution would we propose? How would we do it?
08:03:08 [chaals]
Topic: What to do
08:03:21 [chaals]
IH: My personal preference is use the compound literal
08:03:28 [duerst]
q+
08:03:38 [chaals]
MM: Some of these products are databases, and how it is encoded in serialisation seems to be getting confused
08:04:01 [azaroth]
q+
08:04:20 [chaals]
MM: The compound literal model can be functional, and we can produce a nicer serialisation syntax
08:04:50 [chaals]
MD: there may be many schemas that already say "use a literal". so we would have to change a lot of actual people's behaviour.
08:05:00 [azaroth]
ack duerst
08:06:35 [chaals]
AP: derivative specs, that say "use a literal" - and none of those will pick this up. We see lots of specs and say "we want a literal to have direction"
08:06:37 [chaals]
q+
08:06:56 [chaals]
… this would let us fix the thing we are saying. But it doesn't fix the RDF space.
08:07:11 [bigbluehat]
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08:07:15 [chaals]
q+ danbri
08:07:16 [addison_]
q?
08:07:16 [bigbluehat]
q+ danbri
08:07:28 [bigbluehat]
present+
08:07:36 [duerst]
present+
08:07:51 [chaals]
RS: As soon as you are beyond the Literal, you haven't solved the problem. most strings will stay problematic.
08:08:28 [chaals]
… whereas extending lang tags is horrible, but won't break stuff.
08:08:37 [chaals]
IH: Or do it at the datatype level.
08:08:50 [chaals]
RS: If you put space into turtle, it will get broken.
08:08:53 [azaroth]
ack azaroth
08:09:05 [azaroth]
ack chaals
08:09:11 [chaals]
q+
08:09:25 [bigbluehat]
q+
08:09:29 [azaroth]
ack danbri
08:10:03 [chaals]
DB: We had a workshop on property graphs. There is some sort of energy. There is RDF*, giving some wiggle room on the edges of a graph. My impression is that 3 or 4 RDF databases have been patched to handle this, whih suggests the community actually isn't dead.
08:10:25 [chaals]
… It doesn't make it easier, but feels like there might be a larger conversation about taking a new look at RDF.
08:10:40 [chaals]
IH: There may be someone who can pull off and RDF refresh. It ain't me babe.
08:11:05 [chaals]
… it will take several years to get there and solve this. If that's OK, it might be a real answer.
08:11:34 [chaals]
… The hole came around because Verifiable claims could not solve the problem.
08:11:48 [chaals]
… If we can wait a few years, we can deal with it.
08:11:52 [addison_]
q+
08:12:01 [chaals]
q+ MM
08:12:02 [azaroth]
scribenick: azaroth
08:12:03 [addison_]
ack chaals
08:12:16 [azaroth]
chaals: I don't think there's an easy way to move the stack, it takes a long time
08:12:35 [azaroth]
... the problem with datatypes is that instead of having to change a dozen or two engines, you need to take 100s of millions of people that you can't find
08:12:38 [azaroth]
... there's no shortcut
08:12:53 [azaroth]
... if it takes a few years, then it has taken 20 years to NOT have a solution at all
08:13:03 [azaroth]
... 23 years and then a solution, that seems pretty reasonable to me
08:13:15 [azaroth]
... this is a big piece of work, it feels like a small problem, but it keeps growing
08:13:21 [azaroth]
... we grow more technical debt the entire time
08:13:31 [azaroth]
... if you think we can do it in a few years, that seems a sensible approach
08:13:37 [azaroth]
ivan: I don't have the feeling ...
08:13:44 [azaroth]
danbri: I'll throw schema.org into the mix
08:13:55 [azaroth]
... i'm responsible for it as a multiple stakeholder project that's also my job
08:14:02 [azaroth]
... use microdata as rdfesque
08:14:13 [azaroth]
... lots of json-ld and a ton of microdata
08:14:34 [azaroth]
... relatively easy for schema to say we're loosely coupled to rdf, generalized graph with literals here and blank nodes there
08:14:50 [azaroth]
... can use schema to nudge things in the right direction. At google we could do a better job of languages generally
08:15:03 [azaroth]
... lots of it out there ... 1 in 3 or 4 pages depending how you count
08:15:13 [azaroth]
addison_: If we knew the solution, we could push the implementations
08:15:21 [azaroth]
danbri: looking to sit on the fence a little
08:15:27 [chaals]
q+ r12a, gregg
08:15:33 [chaals]
q+ IH
08:15:38 [azaroth]
bigbluehat: there is will to address this and more
08:15:55 [azaroth]
... RDF*, there are databases being eaten by property graphs, but a willingness to push
08:16:05 [azaroth]
... this charter went to a room full of people not doing RDF
08:16:30 [azaroth]
... so the opportunity is that if we can bring the people in that care, or use RDF CG, to herd the cats into the room
08:17:00 [azaroth]
... is there momentum to get people towards this. Could be stand alone, could be 3 years bigger thing
08:17:15 [azaroth]
... opportunity to see it in advance with schema.org
08:17:16 [chaals]
ack bi
08:17:49 [azaroth]
... json-ld has uncorked the bottle, and a lot of specs depend on it
08:17:57 [chaals]
q+ to echo the idea that RDF should not be seen as something we prefer to avoid mentioning
08:18:07 [azaroth]
... json-ld then depends on rdf ... the other course is for json-ld to get off the RDF dependency
08:18:24 [azaroth]
addison_: If we can get the destination right, there's other models for spec development
08:18:43 [azaroth]
... work through the technical choices. We have so many specs that depend on json-ld that are coming down the pike
08:18:48 [azaroth]
... we need to do /something/
08:19:16 [azaroth]
... alternative is that we have the same thing happening in today's space as previously ... no one went out of business, but we'd be locking the solution outside of the spec
08:19:27 [azaroth]
... so it would be non-interoperable and we want to avoid that
08:19:48 [azaroth]
... should know the direction and some agreement about how to get there. If we can fix RDF at the same time great
08:19:51 [azaroth]
q?
08:19:57 [azaroth]
ack addison_
08:19:58 [azaroth]
ack MM
08:20:01 [azaroth]
ack gregg
08:20:03 [chaals]
ack r1
08:20:19 [azaroth]
gkellogg: if there was magic pixie dust, and JSON-LD does it right, then all the rest of the specs work
08:20:43 [azaroth]
... if there's a migration path with syntactic sugar for a json-ld value object to have it create the compound objects (or whatever) to create a bridge towards a deeper solution down the line
08:21:03 [azaroth]
... it's not a perfect solution, for the applications on top of it
08:21:14 [azaroth]
... could probably shoehorn into the json-ld 11 work
08:21:24 [azaroth]
... once it's out there, then it's out there
08:21:39 [azaroth]
... but in a later version we can rebase it against a rdf 2.0 or whatever
08:21:45 [chaals]
zakim, close the queue
08:21:46 [Zakim]
ok, chaals, the speaker queue is closed
08:22:03 [azaroth]
ivan: Benjamin, one thing is that the call went to the SW mailing list. the rdf folks were in the loop, not just AC
08:22:24 [azaroth]
... went to a bunch of lists for semweb and i18n. If Berlin effect is so strong, I don't know
08:22:48 [azaroth]
... what this tells me and it goes the same way as what dan said, it looked like a small problem but it opens pandora's box
08:23:01 [azaroth]
... better to wait to see if a full WG comes into being
08:23:08 [azaroth]
... there's a number of problems that have been described
08:23:17 [azaroth]
... this would be one minor item amongst many others
08:23:27 [azaroth]
... so wait and hope
08:23:38 [bigbluehat]
q+
08:24:27 [azaroth]
... if we do something in json-ld today, e.g. 2.1.4.2.2, that can't be represented in rdf, then we would lose it
08:24:50 [azaroth]
... but could define in RDF the compound object, with all its downsides for turtle and owl and so on
08:24:59 [azaroth]
... if I work in the owl space, then I won't be able to use it
08:25:20 [azaroth]
... but in JSON-LD, the syntactic version is obvious for the current json-ld structure
08:25:37 [azaroth]
... if I don't care about the RDF, then it's good
08:25:59 [azaroth]
addison_: Need to take an action
08:26:17 [azaroth]
chaals: Suggest we take this to JSON-LD, then everything downstream works unless it's full RDF stack
08:26:38 [azaroth]
... second, if we just do it in JSON-LD and then go back to RDF and backfilled to make it work?
08:26:49 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison_
08:26:50 [azaroth]
ivan: in json-ld spec, we have to define the rdf we generate
08:27:11 [azaroth]
... so must define some sort of rdf term in some namespace, which is not in the charter ...
08:27:16 [azaroth]
gkellogg: rdf:JSON
08:27:25 [azaroth]
chaals: it's not pretty, regardless of how we do it
08:27:57 [azaroth]
bigbluehat: Please come to the WG to discuss
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08:53:15 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison
08:53:20 [addison]
zakim, bye
08:53:20 [Zakim]
leaving. As of this point the attendees have been chaals, addison_, RobSanderson, MartinDuerst, AddisonPhilipps, IvanHerman, r12a, Rob_Sanderson, bigbluehat, danbri, gkellogg,
08:53:20 [Zakim]
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08:53:23 [Zakim]
... Mohd_Saleem, duerst
08:53:31 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison
08:54:58 [addison]
summary of hallway: I18N agreed to come to JSON-LD tomorrow 1400 to discuss implementing a super-set fix in LD 1.1
08:55:05 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2019/09/18-rdf-dir-literal-minutes.html addison
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