RE: The X Datatype Proposal

At 11:32 PM 11/14/01 +0200, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
> > Well, yes, I have in the past found it useful to think about RDF in terms
> > of reified statements.  (e.g.
> > http://public.research.mimesweeper.com/RDF/RDFContexts.html.)  But I have
> > always seen any such view as being underpinned by the basic RDF triple
> > model, rather than vice versa.
>
>But the problem arises that, in any context where you must qualify
>statements (and that's darn near everywhere, really) you have to
>reify the statements, yet that is an extra step with the current
>model, and should be provided IMO for free.

Well, I think you need to be able to use statements in some way without 
asserting them.  It is possible that the mechanism that RDF calls 
"reification" is one way to achieve this.  I have found that it is not 
difficult to invent other mechanisms using RDF that can have the same effect.

I think a lot of this debate is simply about the viewpoint one chooses to 
adopt.  I can see why you might find it attractive to use a reified 
statement as your "primitive";  others view the  unreified triple as 
primitive.  I think many people here feel that RDF is not necessarily the 
best possible starting point for where we're trying to get to, but it is 
what we have and, most importantly IMO, it has a body of active consensus 
across a broad range of interested parties (theorists, developers, 
information designers) that it is a not-wholly-unreasonable starting point.

#g



------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Klyne                    MIMEsweeper Group
Strategic Research              <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
<Graham.Klyne@MIMEsweeper.com>
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Received on Thursday, 15 November 2001 09:51:34 UTC