Re: About DESCRIBE

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 12:06, Seaborne, Andy wrote:
> The DESCRIBE action is asking a "tell me about" question where the client is
> not specifying the exact shape of the information to be extracted but is
> asking an open question.  The results depend on which RDF repository is
> asked.
[...]
> FetchQL (Joseki):
> 
> Joseki has a "query language" fetch that takes two forms to identify the
> resource of interest: either the URI of the resource or an identifying
> property/value pair.  What is returned is server configuration dependent.
> Many people use bNode closure.

I like this sort of design where this feature as a completely separate
query language.

RobS recently wrote:

[[
With no definition of ordering, a "limit" feature violates
many properties which can be desirable for a query language, including a
simple desire for deterministic results.
]]
 --
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg/2004JulSep/0104.html

and I have a similar feeling about DESCRIBE. If the results aren't
determined by the spec, it feels like a very different beast from
SELECT/WHERE.

As chair, looking at WG mechanics, the test harness for DESCRIBE looks
like it will be very different. EricP told me DESCRIBE gave him
that "one of these things is not like the others" feeling when he
was implementing it.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Tuesday, 20 July 2004 13:18:31 UTC