Re: Comments on Last-Call Working Draft of RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax

Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:
>My 2c on these comments added inline.
>
>On Oct 19, 2013, at 4:46 PM, Michael Schneider wrote:
>
>> Dear Working Group!
>> 
>> This is my review of the Last-Call Working Draft of the "RDF 1.1
>Concepts and Abstract Syntax" specification.
>> 
>> Unfortunately, I only learnt about the existence of the LCWDs from
>their announcement on the SWIG mailing list as of 3 October, with an -
>already extended - deadline set to 17 October, which was a very short
>time and did not give me enough time to complete the review in time. I
>hope that you will still accept my review. I will send another review
>for the RDF Semantics specification, which I will hopefully finish till
>tomorrow. To ease the process for you, I have, after a mail exchange
>with Sandro Hawke, created my review based on the most-current editor
>drafts of the two documents:
>> 
>> *
><https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/default/rdf-concepts/index.html>
>> * <https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/default/rdf-mt/index.html>
>> 
>> I'd like to add that I have a high personal and professional stake in
>these two documents.
>> 
>> In general, I consider the "Concepts" document pleasing and don't
>have any real show-stopping issues to report. Still, there are a few
>issues that I consider "major", and a couple that I consider "minor".
>> 
>> Major issues:
>> -------------
>> 
>> * § 3.3: "a datatype IRI, being an IRI that determines how the
>lexical form maps to a literal value." I do not think that it is
>correct to state that an IRIs would determine how the lexical-to-value
>mapping works. IRIs generally do only denote some resource, in this
>case a datatype. It's the datatype specification which determines the
>mapping, not the IRI that denotes the datatype.
>
>Correct. Better wording would be "..being an IRI that identifies a
>datatype which determines..."
>
>> 
>> * § 3.1: I believe that the "NOTE" about IRIs, literals and blank
>nodes being distinct should be formally specified in some way, and not
>just "noted".
>
>It should be normative, for sure. 
>> 
>> * § 5.1: Several of the XML datatypes listed seem to be incompatible
>with the definition of a "lexical-to-value mapping" in the beginning of
>§5. According to the definition, "each member of the lexical space is
>paired with exactly one value, and is a lexical representation of that
>value. However, for example the lexical forms of the datatype
>"xsd:time" do not uniquely denote a single time value, but denote an
>infinite number of recurrent time values, one per day (for a fixed time
>zone). Further, for the datatype "xsd:date", it is not clear whether a
>lexical form denotes a single point on the timeline (e.g. the starting
>point of a day), or rather a whole interval of values (the whole day).
>Variants of these problems exist for several of the other listed
>time-related datatypes.
>
>This is all very arguable. The text is however correct in describing
>what RDF assumes about datatypes. This has some consequences for how
>the XML datatypes must be interpreted. The value space of xsd:time is
>the 24-hour daily clock, not timepoints on an infinite timeline. The
>value space for xsd:date is either points or intervals (if you care,
>ask the XMLSchema authors), but either way the value is required to be
>unique for a given lexical form. Variants of these comments apply to
>the other time-related datatypes. 
>
>I propose that we make no changes in response to this comment. The
>statement is accurate, and to get into this much detail is
>inappropriate in Concepts. 
>

I agree with you, but I know Michael has thought about this a lot.    I'd be more comfortable if we first asked him if there's a material reason we can't just think about it as you suggest here, Pat.    Given our current urgency, I think it would be best to ask asap.   I guess I'll take a crack at it in the morning (us/eastern) if you don't get to it first or say why we shouldn't.

I might try to look up whether xsd is 1-1 (between values and canonical lex rep) first.

     - Sandro

>> 
>> Minor issues:
>> -------------
>> 
>> * § 1.2, par 1, states that the term "resource" "is synonymous with
>entity". I did not find the term "entity" being mentioned elsewhere in
>the document, nor would I say from my experience that it is widely used
>in the RDF world as a synonym for "resource". So I suggest to remove
>the cited phrase.
>
>Whatever. 
>> 
>> * § 1.3, 2nd item: double word: "what what"
>> 
>> * § 3.2, the NOTE: "... that permits a much wider range...": the word
>"much" is redundant and should in my opinion not appear in a
>specification.
>
>Agree.
>
>> 
>> * §4.1: In the introductory sentence, the two datasets D1 and D2 each
>have only a single named graph NG1 and NG2, respectively. This would be
>unnessesarily restrictive. Therefore, and from condition 6 of the
>definition, I guess that NG1 and NG2 are really meant to be /sets/ of
>named graphs for the two datatsets?
>> 
>> * §4.1: Typos in condition 4 of the definition:
>>  - comma missing in the set defining G
>>  - the set defining G runs to "1n", which should be "tn" or "Tn"
>>  - the set defining M(G) runs to "M(T(n))": be careful to use the
>same
>>    term ("tn" or "Tn" that is used in the set defining G.
>> 
>> * §5.4: "Semantic conditions of RDF MAY recognize other datatype
>IRIs...". The term "semantic condition" is specific to the RDF
>Semantics
>>  and as far as I can see does not appear elsewhere in the Concepts
>document. I think that the sentence should appear only in the RDF
>Semantics and should be removed in the Concepts document.
>
>I have no opinion on the above comments, but the typos should obviously
>be fixed. 
>
>Pat
>
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Michael Schneider
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
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Received on Sunday, 20 October 2013 03:40:34 UTC