Re: Blank Nodes and SPARQL

After consulting with the lab, we have decided that the namespace
splitting proposal (_!:...) is the best way to deal with the use cases
that have been brought up.

While we believe that the protocol prebinding is nice and generally
useful, we would prefer a syntax level solution to the bnode problem.

The function extension (ext:bnodelabel) comes in a distant third.  It
adds annoying overhead to templating queries.  We were also concerned
with how well implementations will deal with function extensions.

So I drop my original comment suggestions in favor of either namespace
splitting or prebinding.  The function extensions have yet to convince
me, but there's still room.


Finally, I'd like to thank Amy Alford, Kendall Clark, and Bijan Parsia
for all their help and input into this issue.  I'd also like to thank
the members of the dawg who've been so responsive to this issue both on
the list and in IRC.

-Ron