- From: Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:20:05 +0200 (EET)
- To: Toby Inkster <tai@g5n.co.uk>
- cc: Chris Welty <cawelty@gmail.com>, semantic-web@w3.org
On 2010-01-14, Toby Inkster wrote: > * Explicit support for named graphs Yes, this would be a step forward. But if you look at them from the logical or the semantic point of view, they are simply another instantiation of reification. If we want to give them a proper axiomatic semantics, we're right back into the debates which surrounded reification from the get go. Make no mistake, I think named graphs are a *very* good idea. I just think we might be glossing over a number of minutiae by calling wholesale reification by another name, and just hoping those pesky logicians don't catch upto our newest fad. ;) > * Literal subjects Personally I'd like to see subject, predicate and object, all of them, handled on an equal footing. Or if not, I'd like to see an axiomatic semantics which clarifies their inherent difference. > * Blank node predicates Absolutely. Even if nothing else, blank nodes should be allowed in subject, predicate and object. I mean, from my relational database background, I tend to think of blank nodes as the perfect, Coddian, blind surrogate. In that sense, they can serve in any role at all. > (Though it might be a good idea to phase out blank nodes.) >From my viewpoint, I tend to disagree. Even in the relational mindset they have served well, and RDF's blank node abstraction is perhaps the purest implementation of the surrogate concept thus far. We should not throw it out simply because it makes things a bit more complicated -- instead we should clarify the semantics of it, and further utilize stuff like unique properties and other contextual clues to merge various blank nodes into one. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy@iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front +358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Received on Thursday, 14 January 2010 19:20:47 UTC