Chapter 1. RDF: An Introduction
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is an extremely flexible
technology, capable of addressing a wide variety of problems. Because
of its enormous breadth, people often come to RDF thinking that
it's one thing and find later that
it's much more. One of my favorite parables is about
the blind people and the elephant. If you haven't
heard it, the story goes that six blind people were asked to identify
what an elephant looked like from touch. One felt the tusk and
thought the elephant was like a spear; another felt the trunk and
thought the elephant was like a snake; another felt a leg and thought
the elephant was like a tree; and so on, each basing his definition
of an elephant on his own unique experiences.
RDF is very much like that elephant, and we're very
much like the blind people, each grabbing at a different aspect of
the specification, with our own interpretations of what it is and
what it's good for. And we're
discovering what the blind people discovered: not all interpretations
of RDF are the same. Therein lies both the challenge of RDF as well
as the value.
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