Re: comments on current version BLD document: symbols, datatypes, semantics

Igor Mozetic wrote:
> 
> Michael Kifer wrote:
> 
>>> 2- section "signatures and a condition language of RIF^BLD^": the
>>> definition of equality atoms is not entirely clear: the symbol = is not
>>> a constant symbol in RIF, according to the syntax definition in section
>>> "presentation syntax" (it does not have the symbol space).  Furthermore,
>>> as it is correctly mentioned that equality is not a built-in predicates,
>>> I feel there is an impedance mismatch between this predicate symbol and
>>> all other kinds of predicate symbols.  Finally, equality is currently
>>> not mentioned when atomic formulas are initially defined.  Therefore, I
>>> would propose to define equality atoms a=b directly when first defining
>>> atomic formulas.
>>
>> A good point! You were looking at a version before I moved = further 
>> down,
>> but the point about its symbol space is well-taken. It should be either
>> rif:local (my pref) or rif:iri.
>>
>> I experimented with requiring all symbols to have explicit symbol 
>> spaces in
>> the examples, but I think they become unsightly due to that. Perhaps we
>> should not require ^^rif:local explicitly. Then we could write a=b as
>> before.  If people think that we should insist on explicit symbol space
>> names (as it is done now, to make the syntax look more abstract and 
>> devoid
>> of syntactic sugar) then I am fine with writing a =^^rif:local b or even
>> equal^^rif:local(a,b).
>>
> 
> I would prefer to drop explicit ^^rif:local.
> Otherwise, the presentation syntax becomes really difficult to read.

This is supposed to be a web based interchange language. If anything 
perhaps the short cut should be for rif:iri and the examples should use 
curie format IRIs rather than rif:local unless there is a compelling 
reason for them to be local.

Dave
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