RE: Anonymous resource names -versus- variables

At 05:19 PM 5/8/00 +0100, Bill dehOra wrote:
>This is compounded by the fact that the internet doesn't have a
>corresponding 'real world' for 'maps' to represent into.

I disagree with this on two counts:

1.  The statement implies that RDF exists to describe the Internet, in the 
same way that maps describe the physical world.  I don't see this as the 
case;  rather, the Internet is just part of the machinery.  I say that RDF 
exists to describe "resources" (whatever they may be, but I think that one 
could say that resources are made of information in a fashion analogous the 
real-world objects being made of atoms).

2.  I believe there *is* a useful parallel to the 'real world' and 
'maps'.  There is a universe of information spanned by RDF statements, and 
there are documents containing representations of RDF statements that 
(sometimes) relate some part of that universe to concepts that we humans 
can reckon with.

That said, I can find resonance with your conclusion.  I guess we arrive by 
different paths.  (But, hey, isn't that what RDF is meant to allow?)

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@ACM.ORG)

Received on Monday, 8 May 2000 18:39:53 UTC