Punning discussion

Hi folks,

I was talking with Ian about some discussion points and questions to  
help structure the conversation we will have on punning. We came up  
with the following:

1) Consider the punning issue to be divided into two kinds of  
punning. The first kind adds instance punning against classes and  
properties. In some sense this is the most easily understood kind of  
punning and those for which there are obvious use cases. The second  
kind are the other punning pairs - class/property, objectproperty/ 
dataproperty. Is it worth considering these separately? Do we have  
any kind of consensus that one or both are desirable/useful?

2) Two cited cases for punning are Metamodeling and being able to  
have real properties on classes/properties. But what exactly do  
people consider Metamodeling, and does the punning proposal address  
these cases. As an example, it does not address the cases on Conrad's  
Metamodeling page because we don't plan to support modification of  
owl syntax.

3) From a technical point of view, how would dropping some or all of  
punning help? To what extent is the amount of new vocabulary  
dependent on our choice of punning? How does punning effect OWL Full?

4) From a communication/understandability/documentation point of  
view, how would our choices effect the communities that we want to  
use OWL. What is the extra documentation needed to explain punning?  
How much would eliminating or reducing punning help? What's the  
appropriate balance of cost/benefit?

5) Other aspects of the design interact with punning, particularly  
the introduction of "Strong typing" that makes it easier to parse and  
process OWL.  As we discuss the various costs/benefits, it will be  
helpful to distinguish which costs and benefits are associated with  
each feature, as they are, to some extent, separable.

Looking forward to the discussion,

Regards,
Alan

Received on Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:12:13 UTC