RE: [OEP] The n-ary relations draft is ready for outside review

Nice example, Chris!

A better compromise might be to have a footnote which makes clear that
it is intended only for advanced readers who may know something about
reification (or whatever the intended audience is for the note). This
may help avoid the problem in Chris's amusing example.

Mike


============================================
Mike Uschold
Tel: 425 865-3605              Fax: 425 865-2965
============================================



>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Christopher Welty [mailto:welty@us.ibm.com] 
>  Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 7:53 AM
>  To: Natasha Noy
>  Cc: swbp; public-swbp-wg-request@w3.org; Ralph R. Swick
>  Subject: Re: [OEP] The n-ary relations draft is ready for 
>  outside review
>  
>  
>  
>  I just don't think any of us are in a position to tell 
>  whether this is a 
>  reasonable compromise or not.  A general rule of tutorial 
>  writing is to 
>  put advanced material in a clearly supplemental spot, so 
>  that novices 
>  don't find it distracting.  Imagine teaching an 
>  elementary-schooler about 
>  the formula "rate x time = distance" by saying:
>  
>  We will discuss how to calculate the distance you travelled 
>  given the 
>  speed at which you travelled and the time you spent 
>  travelling.  This 
>  avoids using relativistic frames of reference for reasons 
>  discussed in the 
>  final section.
>  
>  So, *I* think what we had was a reasonable compromise, I 
>  don't think the 
>  document shoudl mention RDF reification at all, but I'm not 
>  the editor.
>  
>  -Chris
>  
>  Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
>  IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY  10532
>  Voice: +1 914.784.7055,  IBM T/L: 863.7055, Fax: +1 914.784.7455
>  Email: welty@watson.ibm.com
>  Web: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty/
>  
>  
>  
>  Natasha Noy <noy@SMI.Stanford.EDU> 
>  Sent by: public-swbp-wg-request@w3.org
>  08/02/2005 03:22 PM
>  
>  To
>  "Ralph R. Swick" <swick@w3.org>
>  cc
>  swbp <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>
>  Subject
>  Re: [OEP] The n-ary relations draft is ready for outside review
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  Ralph,
>  
>  Thank you very much for your comments! We'll integrate them 
>  and reply 
>  with questions, etc. once we get the second review from Guus -- it's 
>  just easier to do this in one go.
>  
>  > I think it might be useful to mention RDF reification much 
>  earlier; 
>  > perhaps with a brief sentence at the end of General Issues 
>  something 
>  > like "These patterns avoid using RDF reification for 
>  reasons discussed 
>  > in the final section."
>  
>  Chris, I think this is a reasonable compromise. It puts the pointer 
>  in for those who do get confused about this, without obscuring the 
>  content and putting hard issues first for more naive users. What do 
>  you think?
>  
>  Natasha
>  >
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>

Received on Friday, 5 August 2005 18:17:10 UTC