Comments about collections.

Hello,

Here are some comments about collections in RDF:

The use of the rdf:li element is very constraining. The RDF spec.
defines it as a serialization substitute for the Ord nodes.

The problem is someone could like to make typed collections. Does this
is achievable by subclassing the Ord property type. But then how to
express order ?

This could be solved by (optionnaly) typing the element of a collection.
The collection node would have elementsInstanceOf property with range of
a Node that is not a PropertyType.
In this manner, properties of the collection and its elements can't be
confused even without the use of the rdf:li element.

The statement :

   "The working group composed of Ora, Ralph and ...
       has approved the RDF proposal."

could be serialized in XML/RDF as :

   <rdf:Description about="RDF-proposal">
      <s:approvedBy>
         <rdf:Bag>
            <rdf:elementsInstanceOf ressource="s:Member"/>
            <s:Member>Ora</s:Member>
            <s:Chairman>Ralph</s:Chairman>
            ...
         </rdf:Bag>
      </s:approvedBy>
   </rdf:Description>

This abbreviation would permit to express any actual XML/DTD document
in an object oriented manner with RDF schemas. This is, i think, an
important feature that could give a lot of succes to RDF.

Thank you for W3C's great work.
Didier Villevalois.

-- 
** The future is semi-structured. **
Didier Villevalois - Didier.Villevalois@inria.fr
Rodin Project - INRIA, Rocquencourt, B.P. 105, 78153 Le Chesnay, France
Work Phone: +33 1 39 63 56 18 - Fax: +33 1 39 63 51 93

Received on Wednesday, 29 July 1998 11:34:14 UTC