- From: Dave Beckett <dave.beckett@bristol.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 15:09:04 +0100
- To: w3c-rdfcore-wg <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
- CC: Aaron Swartz <aswartz@upclink.com>, Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>, Art Barstow <barstow@w3.org>
>>>Aaron Swartz said: > Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com> wrote: > > > What I've seen so far is an answer that says the spec doesn't allow it. > > I feel that doesn't fully answer the issue raised. > > I know that Dave seems to feel differently about this, but I see a simple > solution to this and empty property elements: > > - Define an empty property element to be an empty literal > - Define an id and a resource to be the reification of the statement We *can* do these things - i.e. changing the RDF/XML syntax but we need good reasons. Neatness is one but I feel it isn't strong enough to counterpoint breaking existing parsers; make no mistake - this would be a change in the meaning. I feel we should be making changes additions, removals, modifications that break existing code only if absolutely necessary for important reasons such as removing ambiguity. In this case we can write a better explanation of what is already allowed in the syntax and there is already a way to do what is required - make the property statement and give an ID for the reified statement, so there is no requirement for any new syntax. If this was RDF/XML syntax version 2 (no backwards compatibility required) then we wouldn't be starting from here. > [rdf/n3 examples deleted] Dave
Received on Wednesday, 23 May 2001 10:09:07 UTC