Re: RDF Extensibility

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:

>
> On Jul 7, 2010, at 11:31 AM, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Toby Inkster <tai@g5n.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Without knowing the definition of foaf:Person, it's difficult to
>> conclude that foaf:Person is not a property. However, even without
>> knowing the definition of a literal, it is easy to conclude that it is
>> not a suitable node to be used as a property, so in my opinion, it is
>> sensible to state that triples containing a literal as the predicate
>> have no meaning (even though I think they should be syntactically
>> allowed).
>>
>
> I think it would be perfectly possible to have a datatype mapping to a
> value-space of properties. But I see no practical benefit with this so I'd
> prefer not to support literal predicates syntactically.
>
>
> I'd suggest, as a general principle, that one should ask: which is easier,
> to allow them or to prohibit them? There are costs both ways. Words like
> 'support' beg the question.
>

Evaluating the revision of a standard many questions are around the
trade-off between stability and design elegance. The allegedly neutral terms
"allow" and "prohibit" seem to beg this question.

Reto