Re: Need a few basic Classes in RDFS

At 01:36 PM 9/24/98 +0200, Magnus Frid wrote:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/1998JulSep/0054

>Lately I have tried to understand RDF enough to tell in which applications
>it can be used. I came to the same conclusion as Mr. Patel; RDF ought to be
>useful for creating general data models, not only meta data models.

Your encouragement that RDF could be useful for a broader spectrum
of applications than identified in the original charter is most
welcome.  We did, in fact, have several participants join the
RDF Schema design activity who were interested in guiding the
design of version 1 in a way that would not preclude more database
style applications in a future version.

> I
>would suggest a connection between RDF and UML (Unified Modeling Language).

I hope you have seen the paper on exactly this topic written by
Walter Chang: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-rdf-uml-19980804

>It is probable that this will be developed when RDF is mature enough and
>RDF tools becomes available.

And I would encourage a group to go off and create the appropriate
vocabularies to express other modelling languages within the RDF
framework.  This work might not belong within the scope of what
we currently call the "Metadata Activity" at W3C but there might
well be another place for it in the W3C work agenda.

>There is one thing though, that it is urgent to specify now. It is the
>basic classes that M. Michard mentions in his posting.

The RDF Schema Working Group did discuss including some base data
types in the specification of RDF Schema.  After some lengthy
discussion it was recognized that some of this would be more
properly done at the XML level so that it could be shared in
common with other applications of XML, not just RDF.  So the
RDF Schema WG decided to postpone all but the minimum typing
in RDF Schema so as to create the minimum discontinuities with
likely future XML work in this area.  Please stay tuned to
http://www.w3.org/XML for announcements of new work in this\
regard.

>I would like to invite anyone interested in this area to discuss this issue
>further. I do not feel that the RDF comment list is the right forum, but I
>would be glad if someone from the RDF community would like to participate.

Yes, thank you.  I do anticipate that there will soon be a forum
in which basic data typing of the kind mentioned by Alain Michard
(numerals, integers, URI) in XML is a topic of discussion.  It is
my hope that if and when such capabilities are manifest at the XML
level then RDF Schema will provide the tools to allow users to
extend the basic typing in a natural way.

-Ralph R. Swick
 W3C/MIT

Received on Wednesday, 30 September 1998 15:09:17 UTC