- From: Dan Brickley <danbri@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 12:28:12 +0100
- To: Guus Schreiber <schreiber@cs.vu.nl>
- Cc: Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>, Natasha Noy <noy@SMI.Stanford.EDU>, swbp <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>, Alan Rector <rector@cs.man.ac.uk>
Guus Schreiber wrote: > Reification is the proper term. For example, it is also used in UML > books to describe association classes. > I would suggest to put in a NOTE in the text to indicate that the term > is used in the general sense and does ot refer to RDF reification. Reification would be the proper term normally. It is unfortunate that the RDF spec uses up such a useful word, and particularly unfortunate that RDF reification isn't a particularly useful representational mechanism. I would advise against using the word 'reification' (even with a NOTE) to describe "non-RDF" reification in an RDF context. Even writing that last sentence tied me in knots, since non-RDF-reification (eg. the n-ary conventions) is of course something we do in RDF. The word is gone, taken from us... to use it is to encourage its continued use, and not everyone will be as careful as us to include a disclaimer NOTE. I guess I'm not arguing that we must completely avoid its use (eg. in footnotes, parentheses, discussion of relation to UML etc.), just to minimise references to 'reification' wherever possible. Dan
Received on Friday, 7 May 2004 07:28:43 UTC