Re: LinkedData != RDF ?

* [2011-05-19 16:37:07 -0400] Gregg Kellogg <gregg@kellogg-assoc.com> écrit:

] * The model should be based on the notion of graphs, similar to RDF, but 
] where the semantics are more Class/Object based, rather than predicate 
] based. (i.e., I define a class definition with specific properties and
] class inheritance/implements more similar to Ruby/Python, rather then
] being predicate based.

I'm not sure this is such a good idea. One reason for the resurgence of
functional programming languages as well as languages like Go that have
concepts of interfaces instead of inheritance is dissatisfaction with 
the knots one can easily tie oneself into with OO in any reasonably sized
project. Thanks to Java being used as a teaching language in schools
OO may be a very common way of thinking about data structures but it is
not the only way or even necessarily the most desireable way - when you
start getting to problems like classification and similarity in KR, OO
class hierarchies become a bit of a straightjacket. Looser ideas, like
implements/interfaces fare better but they are about *behaviour* and 
not about *data*.

Also, a cursory reading of the literature on graph databases (the Google
Pregel paper particularly) suggests that most information is in terms 
of annotations on links and not on nodes. A predicate is just a link
where the annotation is the name of the predicate. For graph-shaped data
- data where the objects tend to be URIs rather than literals - this 
makes a lot of sense. For data where the objects tend to be literals
I would agree that a more node-centric representation makes sense.

] * The model should be naturally be processed in web-like languages
] (JavaScript, Ruby, Python, etc.).

This is new terminology to me. I'm not sure what a "web-like language"
means other than "a language currently popular with web developers".
Popularity waxes and wanes so shouldn't be a primary consideration.

] * The need to manage multiple ontologies/vocabularies is a real problem
] for adoption of RDF in many areas. Something that allows a local 
] definition of a vocabulary where equivalence to OWL ontologies might 
] also be defined, would work better with the actual practice of vocabularies 
] in the wild. In JSON-LD, @vocab allows for local definition of these
] vocabularies, and the RDFa @profile mechanism might provide a way to
] define these remotely.

I agree this is a big problem. Perhaps the biggest barrier for people
starting out with RDF is figuring out which vocabularies are appropriate
and how to use them. I think this comes from the attempt to have global
scope everywhere (pace blank nodes) and agree that more attention needs
to be paid to the idea of local dialects and reasoning on neighbourhoods
of resources rather than trying to work with the entire universe of 
facts simultaneously. This is analogous to the reason why programming
languages have the concept of scope and it has long been known that
global variables should be treated with suspicion and distrust. Actually
I think you may have nailed the key barrier to adoption of RDF here.

Cheers,
-w

P.S. I think blank nodes are just fine and replacing them with what are
effectively skolem constants as a matter of policy doesn't hurt but 
doesn't really change anything either.

-- 
William Waites                <mailto:ww@styx.org>
http://river.styx.org/ww/        <sip:ww@styx.org>
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Received on Friday, 20 May 2011 12:31:55 UTC