N3 specification (was Re: SWIG F2F during W3C TPAC week, Oct 20/21 (Cannes, France))

From: "Danny Ayers" <danny.ayers@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: SWIG F2F during W3C TPAC week, Oct 20/21 (Cannes, France)
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 20:21:42 +0200

> 2008/9/3 Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>:

[...]

> >> >> Dunno, is http://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/n3/ 'full' enough?
> 
> > My view is that the document is horribly inadequate as a specification
> > of N3 as a representation language.
> 
> Hmm - as I understand it, the Turtle subset of N3 is intended to map
> 1:1 with RDF (I may be wrong on this, but I suspect it can do some of
> the edge cases that RDF/XML syntax can't handle), which appears to be
> rather a well-specified representation language. Does RDF + N3
> extensions break its monotonicity?

I don't know, but it may.

My issue is, however, with the paucity of the specification as to what
various N3 constructs mean.

[...]

> >> > However, I believe that there
> >> > is no chance that I (or anyone else) could use solely that document to
> >> > implement reliable reasoning in N3 or to develop a formal meaning for
> >> > N3.
> 
> > Of course, I *could* implement something that might look a bit like N3,
> > if I made a whole bunch of assumptions about the logical underpinning of
> > N3.
> 
> ...and why not? Could be fun.
> 
> > But that is not the way things should work.  The N3 document should
> > provide these underpinnings to me.
> 
> Why so? Offhand I can't think of a single spec of this nature that got
> everything right first time.

Agreed, but this is entirely beside the point.  A spec should get at
least the vast majority of things nailed down.  I see next to nothing
nailed down for the N3 spec.

> I didn't start the thread, I was just responding to
> > the claim by Phil Archer in
> >  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2008Sep/0001.html
> > that N3 is "fully specified and understood".
> 
> There exists at least one person for whom I suspect that is true. Ask
> Tim :-) 

OK.  Tim?

> Cheers,
> Danny.

peter

Received on Wednesday, 3 September 2008 23:57:43 UTC