Re: Sandro's proposal VS RDF Datasets

I'd like to wait until Sandro replies before discussing other issues, 
but concerning the "union semantics", I think the @union keyword (or any 
other syntactic indicator) solves it quite well. I am totally +1 about 
this and it fits with the "library vision" where the index would simply 
copy all books one after the other. But it doesn't unmake the assertions 
that are inside the books and you can always go back to the individual 
books to understand why the index is such an inconsistent mess.


Le 27/04/2012 13:40, Ivan Herman a écrit :
> I am not Sandro... :-) But I would like to react nevertheless...
>
> I like your comparison(s) and I think what you describe is certainly
> my understanding of things, and I believe also Sandro's. But I am not
> sure the 'problem', as you describe, is so big.
>
> If I have an index describing a library, with the extra typing
> mechanism I can do more. By default, I only have a loose association
> in my index book between the name and another book. But I can also
> say (rdf:Graph) that this name is the genuine reference to a book,
> not just a tag; and I could also say (rdf:GraphReference I think the
> last term we used) that the name is really the physical reference to
> the book, ie, it leads me to the specific location in the library
> where the book really is. (Maybe some other usages of typing would
> come up in future.)
>
> Furthermore, and here is where the union discussion comes in, I can
> also say that I do not only assert everything that is in the index,
> but I also assert everything that are in all the book I am talking
> about if I use the 'union semantics'. It is a choice that I can make
> somewhere (I was in favour of putting this into the index/TriG file;
> SteveH seems to say that this is a feature of the library and not the
> index).
>
> Ivan
>
> P.S. As for the literal notation: yes, indeed, it is a bit like a
> (graph) literal. This has always been my mental model for a TriG
> file, I must admit...
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 27, 2012, at 12:01 , Antoine Zimmermann wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>> Now I understand better what Sandro's aiming at. Maybe it was made
>> clear and explicit in previous emails but I have not followed all
>> the discussions on the graph designs. I'll try to make explicit
>> here something that I found unsaid.
>>
>> I'll use the phrase "Sandro's view" to denote what *I* think is
>> Sandro's view, which may not be exactly *his* true view. Please
>> forget me if I completetly misunderstood your view, Sandro, and
>> correct me.
>>
>> In Sandro's view, TriG files are a way for people to assert things
>> and to include quotes of what other people assert. So a TriG file
>> is always the expression of the opinion/belief/knowledge of the
>> author of the file (note that the author may be any kind of agents,
>> not necessarily a person, let's call it the "implicit author"). So
>> the questions in Sandro's questionnaire really make sense to me
>> now: "The default graph is asserted" which means, the implicit
>> author asserts these things that are said in the default graph. And
>> it's also clear why it says that the TriG file entails the Turtle
>> file, as Turtle is another way of asserting things. "Named graphs
>> are not asserted" means that the implicit author is not saying
>> those things, just merely quoting them. And of course, if you quote
>> something, you do not want to entail anything from it as the quote
>> is the quote. And of course too, if one says "<g>  says {:s :p :o .
>> :a :b :c}" you can as well say that "<g>  says {:s :p :o}" as any
>> subpart of the quote is also something quoted.
>>
>> Now, there is a problem here. It is not the way RDF datasets are
>> supposed to work. It is not the way people in the semantic
>> community use RDF datasets, not even TriG files, as far as I can
>> see. TriG documents are not published online. They are used either
>> to serialise an RDF dataset or as configuration files in various
>> tools or simply to partition the triples in a convenient way.
>>
>> Let us make a comparison. In Sandro's view, I'd say that a TriG
>> file corresponds to a single book which could refer to many other
>> books. It could be a catalogue which cite, reference, quote, and
>> review other books. Of course, the "named books" inside this book
>> are not "asserted".
>>
>> But in SPARQL, an RDF Dataset is like a library. It contains many
>> books that do not necessary reference or quote or cote the other
>> books. It probably has an index (the "default book"). But it does
>> not make sense to say that the statements in those books "are not
>> asserted". All books have their own asserted statements from which
>> you can draw conclusions. E.g., "Luc Skywalker is carrying a light
>> saber" is asserted inside the book, and inside this book, one can
>> entail that "Luc is carrying weight". This does not have an impact
>> on what is asserted in a book of Physics. The book of physics has
>> its own truth from which one can make other entailments. This is
>> what an RDF Dataset is: a library of RDF graphs, each having their
>> own assertions and each carrying implicitly their own conclusions.
>>
>> In Sandro's view, there is this idea that:
>>
>> <g>  {<some triples }
>>
>> is asserting something about the relationship of<g>  with the
>> triples. But in RDF Dataset, this is just a way to put the triples
>> on a shelf, and the shelf happens to have an identifier. When we
>> put something on a shelf in a library, we do not think that we are
>> asserting a relationship between the shelf and what's on it!
>>
>> In my opinion, if one just want to quote a graph and talk about it,
>> one just needs RDF triples.
>>
>> <g>   a  :Graph ; dc:creator<me>  ; :saysInTurtle  ":s  :p  :o" .
>>
>> You can even have a "partial semantics" by separating the triples:
>>
>> <g>   :saysInTurtle  ":s :p :o", ":a :b :c" .
>>
>> Then it's just a matter of social consensus that :saysInTurtle is
>> used to relate an RDF graph to a Turtle serialisation of that
>> graph. You could also add something to the formal semantics, but on
>> the one hand it would create headachs to all implementers (imposing
>> something to be interpreted as an RDF Graph is much more
>> troublesome than implementing rdf:XMLLiteral, for instance), and on
>> the other hand, I can't think of any concrete real life situation
>> where it's actually useful.
>>
>>
>> -- Antoine Zimmermann ISCOD / LSTI - Institut Henri Fayol École
>> Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne 158 cours Fauriel
>> 42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2 France Tél:+33(0)4 77 42 83 36
>> Fax:+33(0)4 77 42 66 66 http://zimmer.aprilfoolsreview.com/
>>
>
>
> ---- Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead Home:
> http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ mobile: +31-641044153 FOAF:
> http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Antoine Zimmermann
ISCOD / LSTI - Institut Henri Fayol
École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne
158 cours Fauriel
42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2
France
Tél:+33(0)4 77 42 83 36
Fax:+33(0)4 77 42 66 66
http://zimmer.aprilfoolsreview.com/

Received on Friday, 27 April 2012 11:50:03 UTC