Re: Subjects as Literals, [was Re: The Ordered List Ontology]

On Jul 1, 2010, at 3:38 AM, Henry Story wrote:

>
> On 30 Jun 2010, at 21:09, Pat Hayes wrote:
>
>>>
>>> For example I've heard people saying that it encourages bad  
>>> 'linked data' practise by using examples like { 'London' a  
>>> x:Place } - whereas I'd immediately counter with { x:London a  
>>> 'Place' }.
>>>
>>> Surely all of the subjects as literals arguments can be countered  
>>> with 'walk round it', and further good practise could be aided by  
>>> a few simple notes on best practise for linked data etc.
>>
>> I wholly agree. Allowing literals in subject position in RDF is a  
>> no-brainer. (BTW, it would also immediately solve the 'bugs in the  
>> RDF rules' problem.) These arguments against it are nonsensical.  
>> The REAL argument against it is that it will mess up OWL-DL, or at  
>> any rate it *might* mess up OWL-DL.
>>
>> The Description Logic police are still in charge:-)
>
> I agree that literals can be subjects. In any case they are, because  
> you just can take an inverse function from a thing to a string, and  
> you have it.
>
> But I do think
>
>   'London' a x:Place
>
> is bad design because really 'London' is a string and not a place.

Absolutely. That triple plus a reasonably sensible ontology of places  
plus a basic RDFS reasoner should flag a contradiction fairly directly.

Pat

>
> Now of course x:Place my be the collection of names of places in  
> english, in which case it is ok. So it is difficult to say just like  
> that. There would have to be quite a lot of education in the when is  
> it right to use strings as subjects space.
>
> 	Henry
>
>
>
>>
>> Pat
>
>

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Received on Friday, 2 July 2010 03:12:01 UTC