- From: Michael Schneider <schneid@fzi.de>
- Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:33:54 +0200
- To: "Garret Wilson" <garret@globalmentor.com>
- Cc: "Semantic Web" <semantic-web@w3.org>
Hi, Garret! >-----Original Message----- >From: semantic-web-request@w3.org >[mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Garret Wilson >Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 8:55 PM >To: Semantic Web >Subject: Re: design decision regarding integer predicates > > >In case no one understood my question (hence no replied), let me >rephrase it. > >In most instances I think of the integer 5 as being a cardinal number. >If I use the integer 5 as a predicate to an array resource to indicate >the fifth element, I'm using the integer 5, not as a cardinal number, >but as an ordinal number. Is this a semantic discrepancy I should be >worried about? Hm, I probably wouldn't have worried about, if you had not asked... ;-) I am a little bit embarrassed, but: Wouldn't it (from a pure practical point of view) be ok to just write something like :myArray array:hasEntry [ a array:Entry ; array:index 0 ; array:value "this is the first entry" ]. where the prefix "array:" is associated with some Array ontology? But I suppose that I completely miss your point here, right? Cheers, Michael > >Garret > >Garret Wilson wrote: >> >> Everyone, >> >> I'd appreciate people's thoughts on a certain abstract >ontology design >> issue: What are the semantic ramifications of using an integer as a >> predicate in an assertion? (I ask this question in abstract, >> independent of RDF's limitations.) Let me explain: >> >> JavaScript is a very dynamic language in which almost everything >> eventually ends up as an associative map. Even JavaScript arrays are >> sugar-coated associative maps, with each key of the map >being the index. >> >> RDF literals have many limitations, but let's ignore them for the >> moment and assume that I have a URI that represents the >integer 0. (I >> use OWL or whatever to say that 0 is the same as the typed literal >> "0"^^xsd:Integer, maybe.) Assume further that I'm creating my own >> array type. >> >> The question becomes: would I want to use the integer 0 as a >property >> to my array resource? (That is, the triple: {my:Array, integer 0, >> first array element}? Or would I be better off creating a new >> namespace just for indexes? (The latter is similar to what rdf:Seq >> does, with rdf:_1 being a resource distinct from the integer 1.) >> >> In short: what are the semantic ramifications of using an >integer as a >> predicate in an assertion? Does that reflect what is happening >> semantically when an element is a member of an array? >> >> Garret >> > > -- Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe Abtl. Information Process Engineering (IPE) Tel : +49-721-9654-726 Fax : +49-721-9654-727 Email: Michael.Schneider@fzi.de Web : http://www.fzi.de/ipe/eng/mitarbeiter.php?id=555 FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik an der Universität Karlsruhe Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, D-76131 Karlsruhe Tel.: +49-721-9654-0, Fax: +49-721-9654-959 Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Az: 14-0563.1 Regierungspräsidium Karlsruhe Vorstand: Rüdiger Dillmann, Michael Flor, Jivka Ovtcharova, Rudi Studer Vorsitzender des Kuratoriums: Ministerialdirigent Günther Leßnerkraus
Received on Wednesday, 26 September 2007 20:34:07 UTC