Re: [LAD] minimal LV2

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 08:04:06AM +0100, Steve Harris wrote:

> On 2010-06-13, at 21:17, fons@email-addr-hidden wrote:
>
> > I've been wondering what is the purpose of things like:
> >
> > @prefix : <http://lv2plug.in/ns/lv2core#> .
> > @prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
> > @prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
> > @prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema> .
> > @prefix doap: <http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#> .
> > @prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
> >
> > where 'doap' stands for 'Description Of A Project', and
> > 'foaf' for 'Friend Of A Friend'.
>
> So, the plugin contains a certain amount of "metadata".
> Things like the licence, the author, where to go and find
> documentation, and so on.
> The DOAP and FOAF schemas can express this information

To whom or what ? If the destination is a human, something
like

# Author: Steve Harris
# License: GLPv2

would seem a bit more user friendly.

> and are widely used on the internet (there are in excess of 200M
> FOAF files out there), so reusing their structures makes sense.

I've never seen one. And certainly when I'd see one it wouldn't
look very inviting to read it. Is this meant for humans ? If not
*which software is reading this, and what is it doing with the
information provided* ?

> > If this has to be part of an LV2 plugin somehow (and it's not
> > clear if it has to be or not), AND whatever software that is
> > reading this is *not* supposed to follow these links and find
> > some information there, what is the purpose ?
>
> http://lv2plug.in/spec/lv2.ttl defines what data must be present.

After reading that for the N-th time, it's not clear at all if
the lines quoted above (from that very file) are required or not,
and *if* they are required, for what purpose - how this information
is used. If the links are not followed, they are little more than
magic incantations. Does the software that reads someplugin.ttl
depend on these things or not (AFAICS it doesn't) ?

> > I'm more and more convinced that people creating these sort of
> > thing entertain the illusion that they somehow create meaning
> > while there is none. It looks more like an extreme form of
> > illiteracy, a complete failure to convey meaning in a form that
> > makes sense to a human.
>
> Oh joy. Random ad hominem attacks remind me why I lost interest
> in the free software "community".

It's not an attack but an opinion, and certainly not directed at
you (Steve) personally. If I wanted to attack you 'ad hominem'
I would not choose a subject in which you are 1000 time more expert
than I am - it would be very easy to select one where the roles
would be reversed.

> I'm not quite sure why you have come to such a dismissive
> conclusion, of a technology that you admit you don't understand.
> It's always possible that the many thousands of companies using
> this technology to solve real world problems are operating under
> some sort of mass hysteria of course, but I don't think so.

Such a mass hysteria wouldn't be the first one - we've seem some
bubbles bursting before. And whatever problem these companies
are solving seem to be quite remote from audio plugins.

The essential point in my comment is that it is foolish to confuse
the 'semantic web' with reality. Are your 13857 Facebook friends
real friends ? Are those 200e6 'FOAFs' what they claim to be ?

Back to the technical side, it all seems as futile as including
a complete BNF of the C language (or a reference to it) at the top
of each *.c source file. It's useless to the compiler (which is not
going to modify itself), and it's useless for the human reading or
editing the file.

And again, if in the end information such as e.g. port min, max,
default, etc. has its intended effect, that does not happen magically
because of the RDF. It happens only because some human at some point
understands the meaning of these terms and their intended use.

If the RDF form would really convey meaning by itself, you should
be able to replace e.g. 'min, max, default' by 'sdf45xef, j73dfhshf,
sdclkle82), and they would still have the intended effect. This is
clearly *not* the case, it all depends on a human understanding
those words, and a human can perfectly (and even much more easily)
understand these without all the semantic gobbledegook.

Ciao,

-- 
FA
O tu, che porte, correndo si ?
E guerra e morte !
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