RE: A proposal for addressing LC comment 58 (fully typed functional-style syntax)

Hi!

AFAICT, this would mean that many documents need a large revision:

* Structural Spec
* OWL/XML
* Direct Semantics
* RDF Mapping
* Profiles
* Test Cases
* the UFDs that use Functional Syntax

This would also mean that I would have to rework the proof of the
correspondence theorem between OWL 2 DL and OWL 2 Full in the RDF-Based
Semantics, and actually the whole (long!) Section 7 there. This may be a lot
of work for me, that does not have any advantage for the RDF-Based
Semantics. I would not be happy with this additional burden.

We had a decision on this almost a year from now, after long email
discussions, and no one seemed to be exceptionally unhappy with this. In
particular, AFAIR (I might be wrong) Matthew was even a guest at F2F2. I'd
say that the disadvantages on the implementer's side do not outweigh the
additional burden on the (now small active part of the) WG.

I propose to deny the requested change.

Michael

>-----Original Message-----
>From: public-owl-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-wg-request@w3.org]
>On Behalf Of Boris Motik
>Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 9:10 PM
>To: 'W3C OWL Working Group'
>Subject: A proposal for addressing LC comment 58 (fully typed
>functional-style syntax)
>
>Hello,
>
>The Last Call comment 58 by Matthew Horridge asks us to change the
>functional-style syntax back to the earlier state, where it was fully
>typed.
>Thus, instead of the current class expression
>
>SomeValuesFrom( a:P a:C )
>
>we would have the class expression
>
>ObjectSomeValuesFrom( a:P a:C ).
>
>This change would not affect in any way any of the other syntaxes,
>OWL/RDF
>included. The main rationale behind the change is to make functional-
>style
>syntax documents easier to parse.
>
>I actually sympathize with this comment. After the second F2F when we
>decided
>that we don't want strong typing in OWL/RDF, I rather arbitrarily
>decided to
>change the functional-style syntax as well. As Matthew's comment shows,
>however,
>this had rather unfortunate effects.
>
>We can address this comment by changing the functional-style syntax to
>the
>earlier state and make it fully typed. Since the primary syntax of OWL 2
>is
>OWL/RDF, and this syntax would not change in any way, I don't think that
>this
>would be a problematic change. Let me know how you feel about it. If
>everyone
>agrees, I shall draft a response to Matthew along these lines.
>
>Regards,
>
>	Boris
>

--
Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider
Research Scientist, Dept. Information Process Engineering (IPE)
Tel  : +49-721-9654-726
Fax  : +49-721-9654-727
Email: schneid@fzi.de
WWW  : http://www.fzi.de/ipe/eng/mitarbeiter.php?id=555

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