Re: RIF a failure? (WAS: Question on dereferenceable RIF rules)

On Thu, 2015-04-09 at 19:19 +0300, Martynas Jusevičius wrote:
> If you plan to transform it to SPARQL, can't you use SPIN rules instead?
> http://spinrdf.org/spin.html#spin-rules

If SPARQL were the only target, that might be an option. But it's not.
We want a human-readable form--probably HTML. We want something that can
be styled and presented in an editor of some sort--probably XML, in a
lightweight browser-based editor or a thick full-featured XML editor. We
might want to put the rules into prolog for fast reliable execution. We
might want to run sanity checks on the rules themselves, or search
through them for certain conditions.

It's early in the design phase, but that short list of requirements
points to something like XML as the source format.

Regards,
--Paul

> 
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 4:59 PM, Paul Tyson <phtyson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2015-04-09 at 08:45 +0100, Dave Reynolds wrote:
> >> On 09/04/15 02:28, Paul Tyson wrote:
> >> > On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 22:33 +0100, Dave Reynolds wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I think there are lots of reasons RIF is a failure, and lots of history
> >> >> behind that, but I doubt that the lack of single rule import is really a
> >> >> significant part of that.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > First time I've seen that stated publicly, but I have noticed the
> >> > deafening silence around RIF.
> >>
> >> Simply a personal observation, not in any way representing W3C or any
> >> other RIF contributor.
> >>
> >> > Of the rule languages I've looked at (RuleML, Common Logic, SWRL,
> >> > prolog, SBVR), RIF has the best design, easiest on-ramp, and most
> >> > versatility.
> >>
> >> Sure, no technical criticism implied.
> >>
> >> > Why do you say "failure", and what "history" do you speak of?
> >>
> >> By "failure" I meant "apparent failure to be used widely", which is kind
> >> of the purpose of standards.
> >>
> >> Why its use hasn't really taken off, and the background to how it came
> >> out the way it did, would be fine discussion topics for over a beer.
> >
> > Yes, I've heard something about executive mandates and scarce resources
> > affecting the delivered RIF products.
> >
> > Be that as it may, say I'm a system architect faced with the problem of
> > handling complex business rules around some bunch of domain data. I
> > choose RIF, largely because of the "I": it allows  business users to
> > view and modify the rules using an XML-based interface, and we can
> > develop generic programs to transform it to SPARQL or prolog for
> > execution in a variety of contexts. You get all the goodness of RDF and
> > XML, and the associated technology stacks, for free.
> >
> > What am I missing that hundreds of other system architects get who
> > aren't making this choice?
> >
> > Regards,
> > --Paul
> >
> >
> >

Received on Friday, 10 April 2015 01:49:56 UTC