- From: Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 09:05:26 +0100
- To: Natasha Noy <noy@SMI.Stanford.EDU>
- Cc: Alan Rector <rector@cs.man.ac.uk>, swbp <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>
Natasha Noy wrote: >> Two comments: >> >> 1) I think it would be worth showing this design pattern also just >> with RDFS, and hence broadening the scope of this note to >> [[ >> In OWL *and RDF*, a property is a binary relation: it links two >> individuals or an individual and a value. How do we represent >> relations among more than two individuals? >> ]] >> (basically this would use global range and domain constraints to >> achieve some of the effect) > > > I agree that this would be useful and indeed there is nothing > OWL-specific here -- the problem is just the same in RDF (or in any > language that doesn't have n-ary relations). And the WG is concerned > with SW in general and not just OWL after all. > > In terms of simplicity though, I would a bit concerned about having too > much branching: here is pattern 1, and here it is in OWl, and here is > the same thing in RDF, but it will look slightly differently (using > domain and ranges, etc.) Any idea on how to structure this so that > readers interested in one language or the other can get what they need > without filtering through too much extraneous (for them) information? > > Basically, back to the issue of what a good template for this would be. > I think that it would be OK to leave the current document structure as is, and have a further appendix with the RDF version, probably only in RDF/XML, since the target reader for the appendix will be happiest with that. In the intro, that structure could be explained: e.g. "Readers interested in expressing n-ary relationships with RDFS only, (not using OWL), should see the examples in Appendix X; these correpond to the design patterns explained earlier (with OWL examples)." > >> 2) I winced somewhat at the use of the words "reify" and "reified" >> RDF reification is, to me at least, a bit of a mess, and use of these >> words will make the RDF literate reader think of RDF reification. I >> realise that the use in this note is appropriate, and in some ways not >> actually different from RDF reification of statements. However, I >> think there is potential for confusion "What has all this got to do >> with reification?" - for me the best fix would be to use a different >> term in this note. > > > Yes, there is definitely a terminology clash there. Any suggestions on a > different term to use? > Unfortunately not, I was hoping that someone form the OEP might have some ideas for an alternative term that is used but perhaps less widely than reify. > Natasha > Jeremy
Received on Thursday, 6 May 2004 04:08:09 UTC