Re: comments on SPARQL Query Language for RDF

Kendall,

With respect to quads, I agree with you.  But it took this discourse  
with Richard, Pat, and Jeen to convince me
that SPARQL has come about as far as triples will allow it.

I still think that SPARQL ought to have a declarative semantics, and  
I still think that UNBOUND should not
be integral to the language, for the reasons described earlier.  Does  
something in the Charter preclude
a declarative semantics?  I don't know the answer.

Cheers, Bob

On May 31, 2007, at 1546, Kendall Clark wrote:

>
>
> On May 31, 2007, at 2:07 PM, Bob MacGregor wrote:
>
>> I think that the fundamental problem relates to the fact that the  
>> SPARQL language is already
>> obsolete even before it has been finished.  This is because  
>> current RDF, and the graph-based notion
>> that it promotes, is also obsolete.
>
> Bob,
>
> I think this is useful. It certainly clarifies a lot of what you've  
> been saying to DAWG over the months.
>
> Assuming, for a minute, that everything you say about yr use cases  
> and requirements follows and is coherent, it simply means that the  
> query language you want is not the one DAWG was chartered to build.  
> Which may mean there needs to be a new WG or charter or whatever,  
> but it does *not* provide grounds for objecting to the language  
> that's been developed. Okay, it provides grounds for anyone who  
> *shares* yr use cases and requirements (and doesn't have others),  
> but that's not the majority of the WG, I'd wager.
>
> It just sounds like Siderean needed or wanted something different  
> than DAWG was chartered to do, in which case there's not much  
> anyone can do about that at *this* point. But, of course, that  
> doesn't moot SPARQL's utility for those who *do* need RDF.
>
> Consider an analogy: assume that for most of *my* use cases, XML is  
> obsolete. That could *never* be an objection against XQuery per se.
>
> Cheers,
> Kendall Clark
>
>

Bob MacGregor
Chief Scientist
Siderean Software, Inc.
310.647.5690
bmacgregor@siderean.com

Received on Thursday, 31 May 2007 23:52:44 UTC