Re: Keeping the simple case simple (was Re: optimizing container pages serialization to enable streaming)

Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote on 11/14/2013 10:37:28 AM:

> ...
> Anybody using english should be puzzeled that one can have a 
> "membership triple" be any
> of the relations listed below. Even more surprising is that we don'thave 
the 
> key ldp:member relation defined which most people need.
> 
> > > 
> > > How can { <#> :doesNotHaveAsMember <#y> } 
> > >     or  { <#x> a :Photon . }
> > >     or  { <#z> loves #y }
> > > 
> > > have anything to do with membership? Yet the spec allows any of 
> > > those to be membership triples. 
> > > ...
> ...

Well, at least I think we're finally touching on the point of real 
contention here.

What we have in the spec is as if we had decided that we will have a 
concept of group of people and to determine which people are part of the 
group - the members - we will specify the characteristics these people 
must have. Thus, I can define a group of people that are taller than 6', a 
group of people that have blond hair, or a group of people that wear a red 
tag on their chest. I can even define a group of people who claim not to 
want to be affiliated to any groups. And, yes, that means I can have a 
group whose members are the people who don't want to be members of any 
groups. I don't see any problems with this and think that's a very 
powerful mechanism.

What I hear you saying is that you think this makes no sense. The only way 
we can define a group of people is by agreeing that we are going to tag 
every member of the group with a label that reads "member". That's the 
only way to define who's a member of a group. And then, if we want to 
recognize that they have other common characteristics that are worth 
recognizing at the level of the group we can do that too but, that's 
secondary. Furthermore you claim that people outside our circle can only 
comprehend your approach. Well, I don't agree with that and, based on the 
feedback I've received from giving several presentations on LDP at 
conferences, I have no reason to think people don't understand the concept 
of membership we have in the spec.

Analogies always have their limits and I don't particularly care to push 
that one further but I think this illustrates the situation here.
--
Arnaud  Le Hors - Software Standards Architect - IBM Software Group