Datatypes (was: Blank nodes must DIE! ...)

On 09/07/2020 06:29, Patrick J Hayes wrote:
> BTW, for straighforward datatypes like the xml schema, which all relate a value 
> to a string, it occurs to me that you could do this by using the datatype name 
> as an RDF property. So instead of, say,
> 
> ex:Pat ex:age “75”^^xsd:integer .
> 
> you might have
> 
> ex:Pat ex:age _:x .
> _:x xsd:integer “75” .
> 
> where the “75” is now type xsd:string. This makes a kind of intuitive sense 
> since datatypes are required to define a mapping from strings to values, and we 
> have used the datatype name in exactly that way. (It would make even more sense 
> if RDF allowed literals to be subjects, so we could write it the other way round.)
> And since it is all in one triple, the issue, about how we know when we have 
> enough proprties, vanishes.
> 

I think I recall Dan Connolly proposing this back in the dim and distant day. 
(I think it was also related to TimBL's "interpretation properties" ideas [1].)

Too late, I came to rather like this approach:  could we have avoided 
introducing datatypes, and just use defined RDF vocabulary instead?

[1] https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/InterpretationProperties.html

#g

Received on Thursday, 9 July 2020 11:30:15 UTC