Re: ISSUE-126 (Revisit Datatypes): A new proposal for the real <-> float <-> double conundrum

>>>> The XSchema guys have already done that, and people have  
>>>> implemented parsers for their spec. If there's going to be a  
>>>> syntax for rationals or algebraics, then that seems to be right  
>>>> up their alley.
>>>
>>> They don't seem interested, alas.
>>
>> And I very much hope the OWL WG takes that as a sign that they  
>> should be even less interested.
>
> The reason (one memeber) gave (privately) is that they didn't think  
> that reals beyond decimals were necessary for a schema language. I  
> think we agree that they are for an ontology language. So, my  
> conclusion is the opposite of your hope.

Rational numbers, and linear equations, and n-ary data predicates, all  
seem *much* more relevant to data representation and model checking  
than satisfiability reasoning; these are systems people want to use to  
store and compute particular values based on input, not to check  
satisfiability. (The n-ary datatype use cases, for example, don't  
offer much insight into how such a feature could be used to draw  
valuable new inferences.) And yet the XSchema group---the data  
representation and model-checking crowd---decided that such notions  
were far too ambitious for even them.

Again, I urge the OWL working group to follow that example and focus  
on the small set of features which will actually benefit users, and  
make sure that they get those features right.

-rob