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A New Data Model for the Web

Posted by timothy on from the data's-no-model dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Adam Bosworth delivered what could be considered a seminal lecture (mp3) at the last MySQL conference about a new data model for the web, why the plain HTML web succeeded, and why XQuery or the Semantic web are failures. He is emphatic that RSS 2.0/Atom are the next big thing and represent the new data model for the web. The audio is rather long at forty plus minutes and there are a few places where the talk has been covered."

4 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. *sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Do we take two steps back every week in this industry or what? RSS is a text file format. It's not a "data model".

    What are the operators for manipulating this data? What is the type system? How is integrity guaranteed? How do I build a distributed database system with it?

    There is only one complete data model: the relational model. Demonstrate to me how this "new" data model is not either 1) some subset of the relational model or 2) a bunch of nonsense, not a data model at all.

    He's got one thing right: XQuery (return to the hierarchic databases of yesterday) and RDF (return to the network model, but with a fixed 3-value schema) are nothing to waste your time on.

    To me his assertions are like saying, for example, the fundamental theorems of electromagnetism no longer apply to cell phones because they can now play MP3s, or something. Makes no sense.

    Unfortunately, there is nobody left in this industry that has any clue about databases.

    1. Re:*sigh* by malachid69 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      There is only one complete data model: the relational model.
      I have an issue with this statement. It could be because I *hate* SQL, but, let's see what other's think... According to http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&c2co ff=1&oi=defmore&q=define:data+model there are a few definitions for data model... among them are:
      • A data model is a collection of descriptions of data structures and their contained fields, together with the operations or functions that manipulate them.
      • A data model is the structure in which a computer program stores persistent information.
      • A method for describing data structures and a set of operations used to manipulate and validate that data
      • A data model is a description of the organization of data that is stored in a computer system.
      • A description of a specification and representation paradigm for data. (I really like this one personally)
      • The logical means of organization of data for use in an information system.
      That's probably enough definitions... Based on those, it would seem that RDF, XML (when using an XSD or DTD), SQL, even the filesystem itself would qualify as data models. I think your assumption that only relational databases are valid is a bit presumpuous. That is the reason why most XML databases are not true XML databases -- because many of them store their data via SQL in the background. Some ( http://www.techworld.com/applications/features/ind ex.cfm?featureid=910 ) would even suggest that relational databases are NOT a good or optimal solution.
      --
      http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
  2. Not really by Linus+Torvaalds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He is emphatic that RSS 2.0/Atom are the next big thing and represent the new data model for the web.

    Here's the thing: RSS 2.0 and Atom really don't have a revolutionary data model. They are just file formats that list short descriptions, in a sequential order, with a bit of meta data, that get polled on a regular interval. That's all.

    They are only popular because the use pattern is different to normal web pages. The tech itself is pretty mundane. Internet Explorer 4.0 has something similar with "channels", way back in the 90s.

    You could have done the same thing with a subset of HTML 2.0 in the 90s. The main reasons people didn't is because they didn't think of it and the need wasn't as great.

    The Semantic Web, on the other hand, is doing new stuff. Some of it we don't know how to do yet. Some of it is immediately practical, some of it isn't. The Semantic Web is more of an idea than a tangible product.

    By saying that RSS and Atom somehow "beat" the Semantic Web, he's comparing apples to oranges. It just doesn't make sense.

    The reason the web took off so well was because it was built from a few simple principles that could be generalised. Resources that could be addressed. Simple, text-based markup. Simple, text-based protocol.

    The Semantic Web will probably take off in the same way, with various bits already being used to varying degrees of success (e.g. Mozilla already uses RDF). But it's a much bigger problem, so expecting it to take off just as quickly is naive.

  3. an aggregation model by ear1grey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The slashdot story mis-sells the content of the speech. For me it was just AB talking about how it would be useful to have a simple system of aggregation that goes beyond subscribing to an RSS feed.

    It's not a new data model & the semantic has not failed, in fact, it's more important when considering how to work with the diverse resulting data.

    --
    boakes.org