Re: Blank nodes and SQL sequences

Hi Kingsley,

On Sep 8, 2012, at 19:31, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:

> On 9/8/12 7:16 PM, David Wood wrote:
>> The issue, of course, is *whose* sequence.  We should be careful not to slip back into a database-centricity, since it has bitten us in the past.  There are other, more Web oriented use cases.
> 
> David, 
> 
> When in the past did you (or anyone else) get bitten by database-centricity? Note, I ask bearing in mind that a relational database isn't the only kind of database. Also bearing in mind that RDF is inextricably linked to the realm of database technology. 
> 
> Methinks, this effort has been bitten in the past by actually trying to disconnect RDF from database technology. 

RDF is hardly inextricably linked to database technology.  Indeed, many of the use cases for RDF involve simple flat files of RDF content served by a Web server or mixed content such as RDFa.

The SWBP&D Working Group worked through a large number of issues related to various perspectives which, as it turned out, mostly came down to those viewing RDF as files-on-the-Web and those viewing RDF as data-in-a-database (of some form).  We had some of those same discussions reappear in the RDF WG last year.

You might consider the FROM and FROM NAMED clauses in SPARQL as an example of the meeting of those two viewpoints, although more recent support for those clauses in RDF databases have provided database-native interpretations of them.  Callimachus, for example, allows one to use them to limit queries to particular "named graphs" (there's that term again).  The fact that one can construct a SPARQL query that selects data simultaneously from both Web-based files and database content is wonderfully useful and something that the relational database community certainly never offered the world.

My point is simply that the way we each view the Web in general and RDF in particular colors the way we approach these discussions.  It is our responsibility to take into account other people's use cases, even if they don't apply to our own lives or even if we don't see their value.

Regards,
Dave



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> Kingsley Idehen	      
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