Re: RDF 2 Wishlist: Turtle Syntax

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Lee Feigenbaum <lee@thefigtrees.net> wrote:
> Danny Ayers wrote:
>>
>> sorry Sandro - it just occurred to me that the thing syntax-wise is
>> needed is really Turtle + named graphs - well below cwm stuff, but
>> maybe get the recipe for formulae from there
>
> Yes, a la TriG (http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/TriG/), which would be
> my number 1 choice if W3C were to bless a specification of another
> RDF(-related) syntax.

Named graphs would have to be the biggest on my list. After all,
practically everyone works with named graphs, and they're an important
part of SPARQL, but they're not mentioned in RDF anywhere. Pat's
presentation also showed some interesting possibilities if you accept
assertions (and negative assertions) about named graphs.

Then if you have named graphs, then a document format that allows
multiple named graphs would be really useful as well (e.g. TriG)

While less obvious, one thing I'd love to see is literal subjects.
It's my understanding that the main reason they were disallowed was
because of the inability to express them in RDF/XML, but with N3
(along with all these endorsements of Turtle), then I don't see that
as an issue. Personally, I hate having to create extra nodes that
represent literal values, just so I can relate literals together (e.g.
think about saying that '3'^^xsd:integer is the square root of
'9'^^xsd:integer. There are more interesting relationships between
numbers that are worth storing, but this one illustrates the point)

I'd also love to see blank predicates. I know that not everyone likes
blank nodes, but they are very useful in some circumstances, and have
just as much meaning for a predicate as they do for a subject.

Regards,
Paul Gearon

Received on Monday, 2 November 2009 01:57:37 UTC