- From: Hugh Glaser <hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 14:21:08 +0000
- To: Steve Harris <steve.harris@garlik.com>
- CC: Ross Singer <rossfsinger@gmail.com>, Robert Sanderson <azaroth42@gmail.com>, Linked Data community <public-lod@w3.org>, Semantic Web <semantic-web@w3.org>
Thanks Steve. Sort of settles the issue for me. Yes, I see RDF as simply a graph, and so can't understand why rdfs:label is any more sensible than rdfs:labels (as an inverse of rdfs:label)- it looks like a convention on the directed graph to me, and arbitrary. But as others have pointed out, pragmatism in use is very important. If the cost is to break things, then it is a Bad Thing to change at this moment. So leave as be (but perhaps encourage technology providers to think about being able to be liberal in accepting literals in subject position, where possible). By the way, in answer to questions of how easy it is to use RDF, my experience is that it is just great for the big bucket of triples applications that we seem to be using in our system. That is, as a data interchange format. Of course, if you actually want to model things, then it gets more challenging, but then it is expected that it should be. So it ain't broke enough to make it worth fixing, and there are a whole bunch of other issues that Dan points out that might be worth thinking about first. Cheers Hugh On 01/07/2010 11:34, "Steve Harris" <steve.harris@garlik.com> wrote: > On 2010-07-01, at 03:20, Hugh Glaser wrote: >> In fact, a question I would like to ask, but suspect that noone who can >> answer it is still reading this thread ( :-) ): >> For those who implement RDF stores, do you have to do something special to >> reject RDF that has literals as subject? > > In my defence, I'm not reading this thread, but someone pointed me at it :) > > Yes, and no. The engine will reject any literals in the subject position, the > index can't represent that. It's a source of significant optimisations, and we > would have to do a /lot/ of engineering work to allow them. > > To be brief: I don't care if there are usecases for literals in the subject > position. It you could rewind time 10 years I might like them in there, but > we've invested millions of pounds in engineering RDF stores conforming to RDF > 2004. I can't, and won't throw that work away for some relatively obscure > benefits. > > - Steve -- Hugh Glaser Chief Architect Seme4 Limited 18 Soho Square LONDON W1D 3QL Mobile: +44 7595 334155 Main: +44 20 7060 1590 hugh.glaser@seme4.com www.seme4.com Seme4 - the experts in semantic web and linked data applications Notice of Confidentiality. This e-mail message (including any attached documents) is proprietary and confidential to Seme4 Limited and/or its affiliates and may contain legally privileged information. It is intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not review, retain, copy or distribute this message and we ask you to notify the sender immediately, then delete this message from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.
Received on Thursday, 1 July 2010 14:22:12 UTC