Re: Converting RDF to JSON-LD : shared lists between graphs

On 07/23/2014 06:46 AM, Dan Brickley wrote:
> On 22 July 2014 19:11, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
>> Hi Dan,
>>
>>
>> On 07/22/2014 01:34 PM, Dan Brickley wrote:
>>>
>>> On 22 July 2014 17:30, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> This does not directly address your question, but . . .
>>>>
>>>> Don't do that!  ;)   Seriously, I'm sure you have your reasons
>>>> for wanting to do that, but it violates what I would call "Well
>>>> Behaved RDF":
>>>> http://dbooth.org/2013/well-behaved-rdf/Booth-well-behaved-rdf.pdf
>>>
>>>
>>>

Your PDF says "It is worth pointing out that these difficulties were
>>> foreseen (at least in principle) by the authors of the W3C
>>> Architecture of the World Wide Web (AWWW),[12] as the use of
>>> blank nodes clearly violates the web architectural good practice
>>> that anything of importance should be given a URI. As the AWWW
>>> states: “A resource should have an associated URI if another
>>> party might reasonably want to . . . make or refute assertions
>>> about it . . . .” "
>>>
>>> I suggest this is a mistaken reading of the holy text.
>>
>> How so?  It seems to me that there is an inherent tension between
>> being nice to RDF consumers (by using URIs for things that other
>> might want to refer to, as AWWW recommends) and author convenience,
>> which leads to bnode use.
>
> Yes, that's a real tension, although bnodes are just one aspect. My
> point was to question the "clearly" in  "the use of blank nodes
> clearly violates the web architectural good practice that anything
> of importance should be given a URI".  Using bnodes is consistent
> with the things the bnodes represent having URIs, so nothing is
> violated. The reason btw we renamed them "bnodes" instead of the
> earlier (1997-2000 e.g.
> http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/#rdfms-identity-anon-resources)
>  phrase "anonymous nodes" was this point: the things are not anonymous
> / nameless. Only particular descriptions of them.

Well, okay, but that seems like a somewhat pedantic distinction.  It
isn't very helpful to tell someone: "There really *is* a URI for
this thingy that I'm talking about, but I'm not telling you what it is".

But I get your point that the phrasing I used was a little over stated.
Maybe something like this would be better: ". . . the use of blank
nodes clearly seems **at odds with** the web architectural good practice
that anything of importance should be given a URI . . .", and then
explaining why: because it makes it harder for others to refer to that 
thing.  Do you think a phrasing like that would be better, or do you 
still think it would misrepresent the AWWW's intent somehow?  If so, how?

David

>
>>> Even if we (by some vast and mystically-tinged effort) give URIs
>>> to all entities known to humanity, ...  that's not the same thing
>>> as always having-to, wanting-to or being-able-to provide a
>>> well-known URI whenever those entities are mentioned in an RDF
>>> description.
>>
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> It is entirely reasonable to want to represent fragments of
>>> partial information, even if the lack of shared URIs is
>>> inconvenient. Reference-by-description is as old as human
>>> communication, is intrinsic to it, and isn't going away anytime
>>> soon.
>>
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>>
>>> Andy's use case seems entirely sensible to me.
>>
>>
>> Sure it's sensible, but it leads to subtle complexity that I think
>> is harmful to RDF adoption in the long run.
>
> Sure, RDF would be easier to deploy if everyone knew everything
> already...
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 23 July 2014 18:18:31 UTC