Re: defining the semantics of lists

On 5/18/2020 2:01 PM, Cory Casanave wrote:
> ... Agreed, but included to complete the requested "semantics of graphs". The discussion about first/next, etc. seem to be more a data structure approach where as "ordered closed set" more semantic.

It seems to me that the simplest thing that could work would be to give 
each thing in a collection (one that is intended to be used for a list) 
a total order (or maybe a partial order, but that starts to get more 
complicated) property.  Software that knows about this property can sort 
the items, and ordinary RDF software will be able to tolerate this 
property without any new syntax or semantics - they just won't be able 
use it for sorting or concluding anything about the list items based on 
their order property.  RDF inferencing would remain the same as it is - 
sorting using the property would take place outside any standard RDF 
inferencing.

The property wouldn't affect open- or closed- world assumptions since it 
would only be used for ordering that particular collection outside of 
any RDF inferencing.

Yes, most RDF software wouldn't be aware of the total order property, 
but they aren't really good at handling order anyway, or this discussion 
wouldn't be going on.

As an aside, I don't see list ordering as being a good candidate for 
adding to RDF anyway, because that order isn't unique: there is an large 
or indefinite number of ways to order a given list, so any one specific 
ordering is not really a property of either the list items or the list 
itself.  It is only a transient snapshot of someone's (sorting) 
preference at a point in time.

TomP

Received on Monday, 18 May 2020 21:36:24 UTC