Re: Show me the money - (was Subjects as Literals)

  On 7/1/2010 8:44 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
> Jeremy, your argument is perfectly sound from your company's POV, but 
> not from a broader perspective. Of course, any change will incur costs 
> by those who have based their assumptions upon no change happening

I was asking for the economic benefit of the change, as opposed to the 
elegance benefit.
Personally, I am wholly convinced by the elegance argument - but it will 
not convince my management, nor should it.

I suspect there are several other companies and other open source 
activities that have investments that assume literals do not occur in 
subject position.

Elegance is not, IMO, a sufficient argument to negate those investments.
(The sort of thing we are talking about, is what sort of display is 
appropriate for a subject of a triple - we know that it is not a 
literal, so certain code paths, and options are not considered).

Of course, in an industrial consortium costs to one member maybe 
justified by benefits to another - but costs to any member do need to be 
offset by some benefit to some member ... I have yet to see much of an 
argument (Henry got a small bit of the way), that there are any such 
benefits (i.e. ones which have a dollar, euro or yuan value). I have 
pointed to dollar costs ... I expect to see some such benefit. I don't 
think that expectation is unreasonable, more a boundary that keeps 
people honest ... and not just indulging in an intellectual game (he 
says politely).

Jeremy