Re: Blank nodes must DIE! [ was Re: Blank nodes semantics - existential variables?]

> The latter can be seen as a value, like a number or a character
> string, but a composite one. Think of the position of a point with
> coordinates x,y.
> 
> IIUC, Anthony is pointing us at: I could use a Literal "1;2"^^Point,
> but it would be nicer to have some way to express that "1" and "2" are
> numbers and that there is no difference between the point at
> coordinates (1,2) and the point at coordinates (1,2), in the same way
> that there is no difference between the literal "3.14" and the literal
> "3.14". In a sense, the form "1;2" is a serialization of the Point
> dataclass.

In the real world, there can be many different point objects that have a 
value of (1,2).  If you are drawing an X-Y plot you may need to figure 
out some way to make them appear slightly different, for expository 
purposes. You don't want your RDF graph to inadvertently assert that 
these points are the same points if they are not (and yes, I know that 
it could be considered a nice philosophical question whether they are 
"really" the same, but let's not enter in that here).

TomP

Received on Wednesday, 8 July 2020 12:28:22 UTC