RE: Requirement: queries written as RDF

Just because some other language has a particular attribute is no
argument that the attribute should be a requirement of this group, nor
is the fact that several postings have taken that attribute as an
assumption.

I need help understanding just *why* encoding queries as RDF is
desirable in its own right. Deciding on such an encoding is very very
limiting in terms of what our final recommendation could look like, and
I think we need some clear and concise arguments, supported by use
cases, for considering such a requirement, and we need to specify the
requirement clearly enough that we will know to what extent we've met
it.

If RDF serialization falls out of our final design, then I don't see any
problem with that. But it's a very different situation from specifying
RDF serialization as a design goal.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Stickler [mailto:patrick.stickler@nokia.com] 
> Sent: 01 April 2004 23:48
> To: Rob Shearer
> Cc: public-rdf-dawg@w3.org
> Subject: 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 13:01:15 UTC