- From: Sergey Melnik <melnik@db.stanford.edu>
- Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 14:51:49 -0800
- To: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- CC: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>, Patrick Stickler <patrick.stickler@nokia.com>, RDF core WG <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>, Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Brian McBride wrote: > > I have been encouraged by Jeremy to repeat some remarks which might help > clarify this part of this discussion. There has been an ongoing debate > about whether "1984" has a -consistent global meaning-. I suggest some of > the confusion comes from different use of language amongst members of the > WG and suggest the following simple model might be helpful. > > Consider an implementation model where we have an application built on a > generic RDF processing tool. > > Application > --------------------- the line > Generic RDF Processor > > Lets take S idiom B: > > <book> <dc:Title> "1984" . > <mary> <age> "1984" . > > Below the line only processing which conforms with the RDF model theory is > sanctioned. Below the line, both occurences of the string "1984" denote a > string. > > This does not preclude an application applying above the line knowledge > that the value of the <age> property is the lexical representation of a > integer, get the value of the <age> property of Mary, which is "1984", > transform it to an integer and then do whatever it likes with that > value. But than happens above the line. > > When Dan says that "1984" has a single consistent global interpretation, I > take him to mean, that applies below the line. Below the line, only the > model theory applies. Nothing I have seen DanC write has suggested to me > that an application is in some way prohibited from interpreting "1984" as > the lexical representation of an integer. > > When Patrick says that it has been clearly demonstrated that "1984" cannot > have a single global intepretation, I believe he is referring to the above > the line interpretation. > > Thus Patrick and Dan are talking about different things and they could both > be right. > > Brian Brian, nice summary! Frankly, I believe S-B is intrinsically flawed, exactly for the reasons you put forward. It sort of solves the problem by delegating it to the application layer above. Jeremy also discovered this "bug". Personally I think of S-B as a simple transitional workaround whose primary justification is backward compatibility (specifically, CC/PP and DAML). Sergey > At 09:44 30/01/2002 -0600, Dan Connolly wrote: > >On Tue, 2002-01-29 at 03:19, Patrick Stickler wrote: > >[...] > > > I believe that Jeremy's recent 1984 example (in > > > addition to other examples provided over the past > > > few days) clearly demonstrates that a literal > > > does not have consistent global meaning. > > > >No, you have not established that as fact. > >I accept it as your preferred design choice, > >and I accept that you find S unacceptable > >in various ways, but S is a coherent design > >wherein "1984" does have a consistent global > >meaning. > > > >-- > >Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
Received on Monday, 4 February 2002 17:34:54 UTC