Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3

From: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net>
Subject: Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 09:05:38 -0700

> From: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
> 
> > Comments on http://infomesh.net/2002/notation3/
> >
> > I have a serious problem with a document on N3 that starts out saying that
> > N3 is a ``shorthand non-XML serialization of RDF''.  I view this statement
> > as wrong and, worse, completely misleading.  Most uses of N3 that I have
> > seen are not RDF.
> 
> True, but I think you are missing the big picture.  

What big picture?  If N3 is a shorthand non-XML serialization of RDF, then
there is no big picture!  The only way for N3 to be bigger than RDF is for
it to be more than a shorthand non-XML serialization of RDF.

> RDF is great as a
> rigorously restrained language, and that is born out by comparing the
> reliability of the corpora of  RDF/XML to the reliability of the corpora of
> N3.  But let's not forget that both languages gain their usefulness from
> simple labeled directed graphs.  

This is a matter of some contention.  In fact, I would argue that one of
the main problems with the Semantic Web vision is precisely this view that
the Semantic Web is tied to simple labeled directed graphs.

> Inevitably it is the labeled directed
> graphs that we are wanting to communicate.   Restraints are good, but many
> times they needlessly get in the way of simple communication.

> Remember ....
> 
>    It *is* all about the graph !

Why should the Semantic Web be restricted to such a limited mechanism?

> Seth Russell
> http://robustai.net/sailor/

Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Received on Friday, 23 August 2002 12:13:55 UTC