Re: Requirement: queries written as RDF

On Apr 01, 2004, at 23:30, ext Rob Shearer wrote:

>
>
> I'd like some clarification of just what we're trying to get at from
> this requirement.

As far as what I personally mean by this, c.f.

http://sw.nokia.com/rdfq/RDFQ.html

in particular the broad range of examples at the end.

I'm in the process of implementing RDFQ. A very pre-alpha, partial
version is accessible at http://sw.nokia.com/rdfq/

(no need to point out its shortcomings, it's very preliminary...)

>
> Are we saying that we want queries to fit into the RDF/XML syntax? I'd
> like clarification on just what users and use cases benefit from such a
> syntax.

C.f. my earlier postings to the WG and to the IG prior to Cannes about 
this

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg/2004JanMar/0056.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg/2004JanMar/0151.html

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2004Feb/0224.html

> My experience is that forcing RDF/XML syntax just makes it damn
> near impossible for humans to compose a document without lots of help
> from tools.

Have a look at the condensed Turtle/N3 query examples in the RDFQ 
documentation.

I think you'll find that they are just as keyboard friendly and readable
as Squish-like queries.

I.e., in cases where users would need to manually type in queries
(rather than use a query UI) they need not be forced to resort to
RDF/XML, but can use other more user-friendly serializations of
RDF -- while still having the queries remain full/pure RDF.

> If queries are being generated automatically, most software
> systems are pretty agnostic just what their output syntax is, so I 
> don't
> see RDF representations as helping them much, either.
>
> Are we saying that we want queries to fit the RDF data model? If so, I
> don't think it's met trivially, since just about anything can be
> translated into RDF--that's the whole point of RDF.

True, but that's alot more work for the query engine and each
engine may interpret the non-RDF input in different ways and
thus come up with different results.

Having the query expressed from the start in RDF puts it within
the scope of the RDF MT, which I think is a very useful thing
to do.

Have a look at the RDFQ materials and then say what you think
about this requirement.

Cheers,

Patrick

--

Patrick Stickler
Nokia, Finland
patrick.stickler@nokia.com

Received on Friday, 2 April 2004 02:54:44 UTC