- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 09:39:19 -0500
- To: "Markus Lanthaler" <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net>
- Cc: "'Sandro Hawke'" <sandro@w3.org>, "'W3C RDF WG'" <public-rdf-wg@w3.org>
On Aug 20, 2012, at 4:39 AM, Markus Lanthaler wrote: > On Friday, August 17, 2012 6:21 PM, Pat Hayes wrote: > >> Maybe we should look at how other contexts handle this issue. After >> all, the contrast between a labile thing and its state is pretty >> universal. Take a vanilla web page, for example, >> [...] >> So web pages (in fact, all >> information resources identifed by URIs; I would hazard a guess) are >> all state-bearing entities rather than a bunch of stuff in one of their >> states. But, as I say, other communities seem to take this in their >> stride. > > I fully agree with this. Looking at it from a REST perspective basically all > you can do is to exchange representations (the current state) of resources. > As soon as you receive that representation it might already be outdated. > > >> Perhaps we should not define a graph to BE a set, but rather define it >> to be any RDF document or structure which *parses* to a set. So we keep >> the idea of the set-based abstract syntax, but we morph the terminology >> to be more in line with the way most of the world actually speaks and >> thinks. > > +1 > > >> Under this proposal (which, to emphasise, is purely one of terminology, >> not actual content) we would say that an RDF/XML or an Ntriples >> document actually *is* an RDF graph. > > Well, to be clear, it is a representation of an RDF graph, isn't it? Maybe we are at another terminology cliff here. The document is the thing I edit and store, and you http-poke, and you get back a REST-representation of it in the form of a byte stream. You don't actually get my document. My document is the resource. Just like HTML, where I edit an HTML document and store it on a server and call it a web page, and your HTTP GET gets a copy of it to take away as its representation. Right? Pat > > >> And when a URI resolves to such a >> thing, we say that it resolves to a graph; and when people talk of >> adding triples to a graph, we smile benignly instead of throwing a >> hissy fit. (Of course, this changes the graph: it is now a different >> graph, once one has made a change to it: but still, it is a graph.) And >> now the labile/fixed contrast becomes a fairly standard and easy-to- >> accept contrast between things that are allowed to change and things >> that, for some reason, are not, instead of being a contrast between two >> fundamentally different *kinds* of thing. And then the only people who >> need to talk about mathematical sets at all, would be people checking >> that parsers work properly. > > +1 > > >> It would take us a while to get used to this change, but I think that >> once we had gotten used to it, we and everyone else would feel a great >> sense of relief. And Richard and myself would have to rewrite parts of >> the Concepts and Semantics text, but again I dont think it would be >> very difficult. >> >> Comments? > > I really like this proposal as it brings the terminology much closer to > other Web architecture terminology... I think it would be well worth the > effort. > > > > -- > Markus Lanthaler > @markuslanthaler > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax FL 32502 (850)291 0667 mobile phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
Received on Monday, 20 August 2012 14:39:55 UTC