has, is, of

I hope this isn't another can of worms, but I would like a reality check 
on the use of "has, is, of" in property names. DanBri made a terse 
statement in a recent email [1]

"This can be read either
o is the value of p for s
or (left to right)
s has a property p with a value o
or even
the p of s is o"

and

"In general this works well for most RDF vocabularies, except when the
property name uses 'of'; i.e. people seem to act as if 'x foo y' is
shorthand for 'x hasFoo y'."

I'm not sure how to interpret this. I do note that "has, is, of" do not 
appear to be used often in schema.org names [2], and I wonder if that is 
indeed a chosen "best practice" for schema.

I come across this in a lot of different discussions and places -- some 
vocabularies are entirely expressed as "hasX" and "isYof", and others 
eschew this form entirely. Formally, the name should not change the 
semantics of the property, and it is legitimate to name your property 
"asdfieh" if you wish. However, within a single vocabulary, I can 
imagine wishing to stick with one form for the sake of clarity. Beyond 
that, I don't know if there is anything coherent to say about these 
property name choices.

Thoughts?


kc
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2014Apr/0224.html
[2] exceptions appear to be in the Product area: 
isAccessoryOrSparePartFor, isConsumableFor, isRelatedTo, isSimilarTo
isVariantOf, predecessorOf, successorOf

and the current Periodical proposal:
isPartOf, hasPart
e.g.: http://sdo-culture-bundle.appspot.com/PublicationIssue

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Sunday, 20 April 2014 18:28:04 UTC