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

Oh, so it exists already. Ok, I'll try to keep the useless suggestions to
myself 😂
Anthony

On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 6:53 PM Cox, Simon (L&W, Clayton)
<Simon.Cox@csiro.au> wrote:

>
>    1. JSON literals is specified in
>    https://w3c.github.io/json-ld-syntax/#the-rdf-json-datatype – the
>    `rdf:JSON` datatypes
>    2. Alongside `xsd:dateTime` used of structured literals for
>    coordinates was specified in GeoSPARQL many years ago
>    https://www.ogc.org/standards/geosparql - the `geo:wktLiteral` and
>    `geo:gmlLiteral` datatypes
>
> The latter are widely used already in the GIS community, and the rdf:JSON
> datatype will also make GeoJSON a tractable alternative.
>
>
>
> The argument for moving some kinds structured data over to the other side
> of the RDF|Data boundary is that the operations that are generally carried
> out on those are (in this case) geometric/algebraic rather than logical,
> and thus use different engines.
>
>
>
> *From:* Jeen Broekstra <jeen@fastmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, 13 July, 2020 11:26
> *To:* semantic-web@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: Blank nodes must DIE! [ was Re: Blank nodes semantics -
> existential variables?]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, at 01:28, Anthony Moretti wrote:
>
> I'm not sure where to post this because there are some subthreads and it's
> hard to judge, if somebody would prefer that let me know, but it seems
> relevant to bnodes so posting it here.
>
>
>
> In one subthread ("Datatypes") Pat says:
>
>
>
> I just wish we had allowed datatypes which used more than one character
> string, so that (for just one example that caused way too much hassle)
> language-tagged strings, but also things like latitude+longitude or number+
> unit (5 inches, 27 cm, 3.5 kg) could have been handled naturally. Right now
> it is not easy to say in RDF that the Thames is 215 miles long, and also
> that 215 miles is the very same thing as 346 km. But this kind of thing is
> ubiquitous.
>
>
>
> So maybe, rather than a literal or a bnode, RDF could just incorporate
> some JSON? Can put it all on one line like a literal or bnode, and can use
> nesting too.
>
>
>
> Saying "incorporate some JSON into RDF" is a bit like saying "incorporate
> some nice words into the alphabet". They're at slightly different
> conceptual levels.
>
>
>
> I'm not against revisiting the structure of RDF literals and/or seeing
> what we can do to make things like units of measurement more easily
> represented. But making JSON objects first-class citizens does not really
> solve anything, I think.
>
>
>
> For example: how does this bit of JSON fit into the conceptual model? How
> is it stored, and how is it queried and/or referenced? Is it a single node
> in the graph? Then how is it different from just having a literal with a
> JSON string as its lexical value? Or if it's a node with several associated
> properties, how is it different from just having any collection of
> statements with a shared subject (blank node or IRI) that together form the
> object value?
>
>
>
> Example triples (I've removed string quotations etc. because this is just
> rough pseudocode):
>
>
>
>     france name {type: LanguageTaggedString, value: France, language:
> English}
>
>     place1 geoCoordinates {type: GeoCoordinates, latitude: 0.0, longitude:
> 0.0}
>
>
>
> At the syntax level, this is *literally *(hah) what blank nodes already
> give you: assuming the above is pseudo-Turtle, pretty much all you've done
> is replace the square brackets with curly ones:
>
>
>
>     :france :name [ :type :langString; :value "France"; :language
> "English" ] .
>
>     :place1 :geoCoordinates [ :type :GeoCoordinates; :latitude 0.0;
> :longitude 0.0 ] .
>
>
>
>    1.
>
> Jeen
>