Re: a cunning plan (was: Re: On Consensus)

This is a nice formulation of the very schism I see
happening if both tidy and untidy semantics persist.

It illustrates how knowledge created by a system which asserts

rdf:Property rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:WeakDataTypingProperty .

cannot merge freely with knowledge created by a system which
asserts

rdf:Property rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:StrongDataTypingProperty .

without mass conversion.

Is this really the kind of SW we want?

Why is it such a chore for folks who want inline literals
to be interpreted as strings to simply declare the intended
string datatype for those properties, allowing troublefree
syndication of knowledge from arbitrary systems? E.g.

   dan:age rdfs:range xsd:string .
   pat:age rdfs:range xsd:integer .

If and when the interpretation is fixed in terms of the property,
then it should be expressed in terms of the property. If, on the
other hand it is not fixed by the property, then local explicit
datatyping must be used. E.g.

   _:x rdf:li <xsd:string>"10" .
   _:x rdf:li <xsd:integer>"10" .

Why are folks so hell-bent on keeping the property-bound datatyping
semantics hidden in the application layer?!

Patrick


[Patrick Stickler, Nokia/Finland, (+358 40) 801 9690, patrick.stickler@nokia.com]


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ext pat hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
To: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@mitre.org>; <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Cc: <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
Sent: 27 September, 2002 10:02
Subject: a cunning plan (was: Re: On Consensus)


> 
> >
> >I'd like to try casting this issue in terms of equality/identity 
> >operations rather than entailments for a bit.  It seems to me 
> >(corrections welcome) the basic issue is that current RDF 
> >implementations interpret the literal equality operation as string 
> >matching, and we'd like to "grandfather" that, so that existing 
> >implementations can continue to implement that operation, and 
> >existing applications that depend on that interpretation can 
> >continue to work (I don't believe RDF M&S actually defined an 
> >equality operation;  this is just the way RDF implementations 
> >worked).  At the same time, we'd like, in conjunction with the 
> >datatyping facility, to have RDF implementations support "value 
> >equality" based on datatypes (so age 10 isn't the same as 
> >movie-title 10 according to value equality).  Even with value 
> >equality, string equality still seems a reasonable (and useful) 
> >operation to support (you can think of it as a "cast to string" if 
> >you want).  So why can't we have both?  That is, define as part of 
> >the datatyping facility something like a "value equality" operation 
> >and require people to indicate which equality operation they are 
> >using.
> 
> The snag is, indicate how?? I have a cunning plan.
> 
> Suppose we make the distinction by saying that we will have two kinds 
> of properties.  Weakly datatyping properties can impose a datatype on 
> a bnode, but they can't force a bare literal to be anything other 
> than a string; so that
> 
> ex:age rdf:type rdfs:WeakDataTypingProperty .
> ex:age rdf:range xsd:integer .
> Jenny ex:age <_:x :10> .
> Bill ex:age 10 .
> Joe ex:age _:y .
> _:y rdf:lex 10 .
> 
> has Jenny and Joe being ten but is a syntax error on Bill. In other 
> words, they use literal equality. But if we had said
> 
> ex:age rdf:type rdfs:StrongDataTypingProperty .
> 
> then Bill's age would have been ten as well, because those strong 
> guys use value equality and can re-interpret a bare literal. This 
> would allow users to set generic preferences, eg you could say that 
> all the properties in some collection or some namespace were strongly 
> typing properties, and then just work with bare literals but do 
> semantic datatyping.
> 
> This allows the interpretation of the literal node to depend on the 
> triple its seen in, so we can have syntactic tidyness and still have 
> the nodes look semantically untidy when seen through 
> strong-datatyping glasses, as it were.  For example suppose ex:age is 
> strong but ex:ageish is weak, then
> 
> Jenny ex:age 10 .
> Joe ex:ageish 10 .
> (tidy syntax, 3 nodes total)
> 
> says that Jennys age is ten and Joes ageish is '10' even though 
> theres only one literal there.
> 
> This also lets a Dan C. protect his turf if he wants to stop people 
> drawing the wrong conclusions about his literals, because he could say
> 
> rdf:Property rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:WeakDataTypingProperty .
>
> which is a kind of 'keep out of here if you don't think literals are 
> strings' (or maybe 'I don't believe in strong datatyping') notice, 
> since it would be *inconsistent* with anyone trying to use a 
> strong-datatyping property to override his conventions on his data. 
> So this lets people declare their preferences and be sure that 
> everyone will get the conclusions they want them to have.
> 
> Hey, this might actually work.....
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> >We ought to be able to cast this idea in terms of entailments for 
> >formal definition purposes.
> >
> >--Frank
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
> >202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
> >mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-875
> 
> 
> -- 
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Received on Friday, 27 September 2002 03:27:59 UTC