Re: An alternative RDF

On Jul 10, 2014, at 8:17 AM, Victor Porton <porton@narod.ru> wrote:

> 10.07.2014, 16:05, "Michael Brunnbauer" <brunni@netestate.de>:
>> Hello Victor,
>> 
>> when using RDF, you cannot decree that certain entities have to be described
>> using blank nodes. RDF users are free to choose between URIs or blank nodes and
>> your app should be able to cope with both.
> 
> My conclusion from this is that the RDF specification should be changed, so that an application would be able to demand that certain nodes are blank.

As stated, this requirement does not make sense. How would one specify which node one wanted to be blank? There is no way to describe a single node in a graph one has not yet seen.

> 
> And despite of that it is not already in the RDF standard, it seems that most of implementation already provide support for this: Using an RDF library I can tell which nodes are blank and which are not.

You can look at nodes and determine which ones are blank nodes, of course. That is part of the RDF syntax. 

> 
> Again: I demand to change the RDF specification.

I find this rather amusing. To whom are you making this "demand"? There is a process for getting a W3C recommendation modified. It involves writing a proposal to create a new working group. Good luck with that. 

> The rationale: Users should be able to construct an RDF file in such a way that loading more RDF files would not break its consistency.

No, they should not. That idea is at odds with the entire design rationale of RDF. RDF is an assertional language, and by its very nature is capable of expressing contradictions. It is important to be able to detect contradictions in data, eg between data from different sources. Being able to insulate oneself from this ability would make RDF useless for its intended purpose. 

Pat Hayes
> 
> --
> Victor Porton - http://portonvictor.org
> 
> 

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Received on Thursday, 10 July 2014 15:00:49 UTC