Re: Comments on this afternoon session on Turtle

* Lee Feigenbaum <lee@thefigtrees.net> [2011-04-14 07:25-0400]
> On 4/14/2011 3:47 AM, Antoine Zimmermann wrote:
> >Just a comment and what my votes would have been if I could have joined
> >the session.
> >
> >========
> >PROPOSED: Mark xs:string as archaic for use in RDF, recommending use of
> >plain literals instead. Recommend that systems silently convert
> >xs:string data to plain literals.
> >
> >-1
> >
> >I always thought of plain literals as a written utterance in an
> >unspecified language. This is not what xs:strings are. Strings are a
> >sequence of characters, irrespective of any language. They cannot be
> >translated or assigned a language tag. xs:string should be used for
> >things like serial numbers, identifiers, passwords, etc.
> >
> >I would rather have plain literals with no language tags implicitly
> >meaning xs:string (as Jean-François proposed but it seemed unnoticed).
> >xs:string is not defined by RDF anyway, I don't know why RDF should
> >reject this particular XML datatype.
> >
> >If plain literals with no lang tag are implicitly typed with xs:string,
> >then all literals have either a datatype or a language tag, which
> >simplifies the manipulation of literals.
> 
> I agree with this point of view.

Are there use cases which motivate having a special datatype to
indicate that there's no possibility of a langtag? I recognize that
this datatype comes for free from XSD, but we have an opportunity to
encourage simplification.

The premise I question is whether the additional diversity (and likely
confusion) that comes of promoting both xsd:string and plain literal
solves more problems than it creates.


> Lee
> 
> >
> >=======
> >PROPOSED: close ISSUE-18 by requiring digits after the decimal point, as
> >in "18.0".
> >PROPOSED: Allow dots inside local part and namespace part of qnames in
> >Turtle, aligning with SPARQL syntax
> >PROPOSED: Turtle should remain as a syntax only for Triples, some other
> >syntax should be defined to represent quad data
> >
> >+1 to all of these.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 

-- 
-ericP

Received on Thursday, 14 April 2011 12:54:23 UTC