RE: Bad job on literals?

>
> 	a) a character string
> 	b) a word in a natural language
> 	c) an XML tree
> 	d) an abstract structure that consists of a string,
>             a tag, and a bit.
>
> Choice d) seems ugly if we think of RDF as a foundation for the SW. If
> we go for a)-c), then the literals become polymorphic...

My understanding was we went for (d) as best reflecting the past (M&S) not as the best basis for the
future (SW).

I think there are many issues for which we might want to say that the past is not the ideal basis
for the future. But the past is non-optional.


> (2) Extensibility


> The language tags keep evolving. How do we accommodate new language
> encoding schemes gracefully?

The language tags are a dynamic set. There are mailing lists that tell you of the changes. There are
well-defined update procedures. We can have a generic dependency on xml:lang, which in turn has a
generic dependency on RFC 3066 which in turn has a generic dependency on ISO639 and ISO3166. IMO
this will have a long enough shelf life. It makes it hard to write software that "knows" all the
langauge tags, but it is only a warning message (at least in my software).

I don't find Sergey's argument compelling.

> In short, I think that we might be doing a bad job on literals.

I think we have created a clear rearticulation of M&S. That is the job we are chartered to do.

Jeremy

Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 09:02:49 UTC