RE: proposal for standard NCBI database URI

Hi all,

It all depends on the application. If the application needs each gene to be a 
separate entity, then there is no other way around it. If it is enough for the 
application to group genes according to some properties (e.g. type), then that 
is enough.

Thanks,
Samir

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 09:58:37 -0400
>From: "Xiaoshu Wang" <wangxiao@musc.edu>  
>Subject: RE: proposal for standard NCBI database URI  
>To: <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org>
>
>
>--Chris
>> Genes should have their own URIs? That's some 10^16 or so 
>> URIs just for the volume of space that I'm occupying right now.
>
>So what is the problem?  There are more concepts exist in the world than
>each of us know. Does it limit ourself from living or learning or working?
>The number of URI is unlimited, what is the big deal?  The issue is not
>about space (by the way, how much space is a reasonable space anyway), the
>issue is the design and management.    
>
>> More useful would be a URI for gene types - eg a URI for the 
>> type "Homo sapiens p53 gene" (or an allele thereof).
>
>Ontologies should exist in any granuality and on any scale, saying one type
>of ontology is more useful than another is arbitrary.  A pacifier is very
>useful to my 10-month old son but completely useless to me.  Vice versa is
>my laptop to him.
>
>Having 10^16 or even 10^16000 genes doesn't matter. What matters is how we
>can carefully modulizes the URIs so that we don't have to import those
>irrelevant concepts.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Xiaoshu

Received on Friday, 12 May 2006 20:33:16 UTC