- From: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:38:31 -0400
- To: Reto Gmür <reto@wymiwyg.com>, "henry.story@bblfish.net" <henry.story@bblfish.net>
- CC: Pierre-Antoine Champin <pierre-antoine.champin@liris.cnrs.fr>, Semantic Web <semantic-web@w3.org>
[Trimmed the CC list to avoid cross posting.]
Hi Reto,
On 09/24/2014 04:26 PM, Reto Gmür wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think the wish to "remove triples containing specific blank node" is
> misguided and bases on a wrong concept on the semantics of blank nodes.
>
> Now I know there's the never-ending discussion about blank nodes being
> to complicated. I'm and advocate of freedom: if you think blank nodes
> are too complex, don't use them.
It's not as easy as that. You would *also* have to avoid using anyone
else's RDF data (unless you could be sure that the data didn't have
blank nodes), and that would rather defeat the purpose of the Semantic
Web.
Furthermore, blank nodes are an undeniable convenience in some ways.
Who would want to have to write -- or read -- the following without
using blank nodes?
ex:ds1 ex:contains
[ ex:location 8
ex:magnitudes ( 3 3 1 2 4 ) . ] ,
[ ex:location 8
ex:magnitudes ( 4 2 3 4 1 ) . ] ,
[ ex:location 9
ex:magnitudes ( 5 1 4 6 4 ) . ] .
I certainly would not!
I think a more nuanced solution would be more preferable than avoiding
blank nodes entirely. A successful technology needs to strike the right
balance between power and simplicity, and I don't think we have quite
hit the right balance yet in RDF's treatment of blank nodes.
David
Received on Friday, 26 September 2014 22:39:01 UTC