- From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 12:43:53 -0500
- To: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
I'm having trouble following the literal model theory stuff in detail, and my attention is diverted by stuff like preparation for the upcoming AC meeting, and I'll be out next week. But I propose the following requirement as a constraint on solutions to this literal stuff: [[[ Lack of ambiguity Some programming languages allow one to introduce identifiers from new name spaces in such a way that it is not possible to know which namespace a local identifier belongs to without accessing both the module interface specifications and checking which one has with the highest priority, or most recently in the document, redefined a given local identifier. This may have some uses in a programming language such as Java[Java], but it has a serious flaw in that when one module changes (without the knowledge of the designers of the other module), it can unwittingly redefine a local identifier used by the second module, completely changing the meaning of a previously written document. Clearly, in the Web world in which modules evolve but documents must have clearly defined meanings, this is unacceptable. ]]] -- Web Architecture: Extensible languages http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-webarch-extlang#Ambiguity W3C Note 10 Feb 1998 That is: it's essential that the interpretation of an RDF document is a function of the document alone, and doesn't vary according to the contents of other documents. Any solution where the truth/falsehood of a document (in some interpretation) depends on some range contraint in another document would be a violoation of what I suggest is a core RDF requirement. I realize the alternatives are ugly... I think the solution there is to accept that RDF/XML syntax is ugly and persue XML-schema-based approaches to getting logical meaning out of less constrained XML. Anyway... I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense; I hope it does, and I hope the WG can consider it in making decisions about the model theory for literals. -- Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
Received on Wednesday, 17 October 2001 13:43:56 UTC