Datatyping issue, too many options?

I can't remember if we agreed this was an issue:

The latest datatyping proposal [1] provides three different ways to apply 
datatyping:

(1) Sections 1, 5:

    ex:Jenny ex:age "10" .
    ex:age rdfs:drange datatype:decimal .

(2) Section 3:

    ex:Jenny ex:age _:x .
    _:x datatype:decimal "10" .

(3) Section 5:

    ex:Jenny ex:age _:x .
    _:x rdfs:dlex "10" .
    ex:age rdfs:drange datatype:decimal .

I think that options (1) and (2) cover the use cases that have been put 
forward.  I don't recall a use-case that needs (3), so this may be an issue 
to the extent that the proposal goes to some additional effort to support 
more options than may be really needed.

(This presumes a slight weakening of one of the stated desiderata 
concerning uniform application of "local" and "global" typing 
idioms.  Effectively, option (1) is a "global" (or "remote") mechanism, 
which can also be applied locally.  Option (2) is a strictly local 
mechanism.  (3) might be viewed as a "global" (or "remote") variant of (2).)

<aside>

(4) Another option, not explicitly part of the datatyping spec, but noted 
here for completeness since this is implicated by the non-datatyping 
elements of RDF schema:

    ex:Jenny ex:age _:x .
    _:x rdf:type datatype:decimal .
     :
    (other properties for _:x, etc.)

which would be rdfs-entailed by:

    ex:age rdfs:range datatype:decimal .
    ex:Jenny ex:age _:x .
     :
    (other properties for _:x, etc.)

</aside>

....

A very much lesser possible issue:  is the name "rdfs:drange" appropriate 
for its use to indicate allowable lexical forms?

#g
--

[1] http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/users/phayes/simpledatatype23-02-2002.html


-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>

Received on Tuesday, 12 March 2002 07:24:03 UTC