Fw: Inconsistency in RDF spec

Forwarded with permission.

Dave

------- Forwarded Message

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 10:44:07 -0400
From: "Davis, William" <wdavis01@harris.com>
To: "'dave.beckett@bristol.ac.uk'" <dave.beckett@bristol.ac.uk>
Subject: Inconsistency in RDF spec


The section "Omitting Blank Nodes" has a paragraph that states that a
property-and-node element can have property attributes and that it is not
permitted:

"The omission is done by putting an rdf:parseType="Resource" attribute on the
containing property element that turns the property element into a
property-and-node element, which can itself have both property elements and
property attributes. Property attributes and the rdf:nodeID attribute are not
permitted on property-and-node elements."

The term permitted could be considered the same as "may" in common English, so
this seems equivalent to a distinction between "Mother can I" and "Mother may I"
when teaching children.  Any XML element CAN have any attribute, but that is not
saying much beyond the syntax of XML.  Thus, the phrase saying it "can itself
have ... property attributes" seems intended to mean that they are permitted.
To then follow it with a statement that "Property attributes ... are not
permitted" for the same type of element seems inconsistent.

I checked the errata, and it has the same phrasing.

Bill Davis
wdavis01@harris.com


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Received on Tuesday, 22 June 2004 05:48:11 UTC