Re: Inheritance and RIF

From: "Hans Teijgeler" <hans.teijgeler@quicknet.nl>
Subject: RE: Inheritance and RIF
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 09:22:50 +0200

> Peter,
> 
> Thanks for your response!
>  
> You wrote:
> 
> <PFPS>
> Well, RIF shouldn't have any mechanism for inheritance.   After all, RIF is
> not about classes and instances, but is instead about rules.
> </PFPS>
> 
> I hope that those rules are about anything we know of, i.e. about classes,
> individuals, and properties. What else can a rule be about?

Well, sure, but the RIF is about the rules; it is not about what the rules
are about (or at least not nearly so much).  Yes, the RIF needs some notion
of data and its organization, but there are lots of notions of data and its
organization for RIF to use, in particular the ones underlying RDFS and
OWL.  The RIF needs only to pick one, and all its assorted baggage (and, by
the way, a good account of data and its organization does not need to use
inheritance either).

> I still am in need for an answer to my question: does anyone know how to
> represent a value with a tolerance in RDF/OWL? So something like: diameter =
> 150 mm +0.03%  -0.25%.
> 
> XML Schema doesn't have any datatype that can do that. I assume that
> somewhere in SemWebland someone must have been dealing with tolerances and
> accuracies. After all it is necessary when "making one of the standard
> modelling choices", i.e. that of defining classes by means of "criteria for
> membership". 

Why not design your own datatype?

> Are there other modelling choices?

Sure.  :-)

> Kind regards,
> Hans 

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Monday, 3 April 2006 12:31:35 UTC