- From: Massimo Marchiori <massimo@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 18:22:27 +0100
- To: "Jan Grant" <Jan.Grant@bristol.ac.uk>
- Cc: "Dan Connolly" <connolly@w3.org>, "Pat Hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>, "w3c-rdfcore-wg" <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>, "Lynn AndreaStein" <las@olin.edu>
> > So, summing up, since this is a fundamental architectural decision > > (not just syntactic sugaring) concerning RDF, what is most interesting > > is to give the reasons for this interpretation vs the easiest > skolem one. > > Yes, it's a classic "last call" fundamental question, because > that spawns > > into the data model, on which there are many things to discuss, > but well, > > Dan brought the matter up early ;) > > At the first WG F2F we had a long (and, i think, productive) argument* > about this. Sergei produced a good set of pros and cons; my arguments > for this are ... > > - supports "non-assertional" mode, ie, RDF querying by turning around > the "X entails what?" into "what entails X?" > > - aesthetic reasons, and those of transparency. When I write an > assertion with a blank node, I intend it to mean "there exists...". > > - DanC also claimed that skolemisation was too much of a general > impediment to getting software written :-) I think he may have > been dramatising for, well, dramatic effect, but I've some sympathy > with this POV. In other words, supporting anonymous nodes requires > some API fiddling, but is not necessarily a "simpler mechanism". Thanks for the initial reply, Jan. I don't want to start a complex debate without first having seen a complete reply, just noticing that this is such a fundamental architectural decision that a complete and careful pro/con analysis is due. The above three "pro" reasons all have good counterarguments, so I'll wait to see for the full official motivation-and-reasoning behind such a milestone decision. -M ps > * debate may not be too kind a word. It was certianly heated! I can well imagine... ;)
Received on Monday, 25 March 2002 12:23:21 UTC