Re: Blank Nodes Re: Toward easier RDF: a proposal

> The prevailing thought at the time was that there was value in
> being able to make such "existence" assertions, so that is what
> we got in the RDF semantics.  But after 20+ years of use, I think
> it has become clear that this subtle distinction is not actually
> *needed* in practice, as Skolem IRIs clearly demonstrate.

FWIW, I have a use-case in synthetic biology that does actually
use this distinction. If I were to use Skolem IRIs instead, I would
have to look into the IRI itself to find out if it was a Skolem 
constant or a normal one or else invent a vocabulary for trying
to talk about statements (oops) and say that they’re meant to 
express existence. That’s all less convenient and less clear than
checking if the assertion involves existential variables and
figuring out in an application-specific way what resources exist
that could be used to satisfy it.

This is not to say that I couldn’t solve the problem in some other
very different way, but that there are use-cases where understanding
blank nodes as meaning existential quantification is actually used
in practice.

Best wishes,
-w

Received on Friday, 23 November 2018 00:08:35 UTC