Re: universal languages

Peter Crowther writes:
> From: Dan Connolly [mailto:connolly@w3.org]
> > Triples are an idiom that show up all over the place,
> > in my experience. They look like a pretty important
> > and useful modelling primitive.
> 
> You can model a directed graph using a set of triples; you can model an
> arbitrarily complex data structure with a directed graph.  As primitives,
> they are sufficient to model any other structure.  I'm not aware of a
> simpler primitive that allows you to model an arbitrarily complex data
> structure using only a single set containing instances of that primitive.

One nit, in the name of clarity here: you only need pairs for directed
graphs (DGs).  Triples give us directed labeled graphs (DLGs).

I think you can represent a DLG with a DG, so maybe it doesn't matter.

But it does raise the question: we're using n-tuples to represent
information.  Is there any clear reason to use n=3 as our fundamental
structuring?   I think it's more conventient than n=2 and makes
self-reference easier than n=anything (which most logics seem to
use).   But is there a solid theory behind that?

    -- sandro