Re: Input sought on datatyping tradeoff

From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
Subject: Re: Input sought on datatyping tradeoff
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 12:57:04 -0500

> >I feel somewhat like the man who was asked if he was to be condemned 
> >to be executed whether he would like scrambled eggs or pancakes for 
> >breakfast before the execution.  After he replied ``Pancakes, of 
> >course'' he was told that then it would certainly be all right to 
> >execute him.
> >
> >We are being asked to pick between two choices that are only on the 
> >table because of various constraints imposed by not only XML and RDF 
> >but by the members of the RDF Core Working Group.  I have this 
> >uneasy feeling that the results of the poll will then be used to 
> >justify the constraints that are being discussed in the working 
> >group.  In this sort of situation it is only right to reject the 
> >poll.
> 
> Look, the WG is only trying to get feedback from as wide as possible 
> a section of the user community in order to help it make a decision. 
> It has tried to make the decision itself and has found itself 
> deadlocked on which way to go. Under these circumstances, asking for 
> wider feedback seems a reasonable way to proceed. I see no reason why 
> you or anyone should feel uneasy at this decision being made in this 
> way. A decision has to be made, one way or the other.

Well the message sent out was not

     We have this way writing literals that is causing us problems because
     we cannot determine what it should mean.  We have two different
     options, one of which [describe how the tidy option works and what
     implications it has] and the other of which [describe how the untidy
     option works and what implications it has].  Which of these two ways
     do you think is better, or do you have another way of looking at
     literals that gets around this problem?

It was

     We have this way of writing literals that is causing us problems.  We
     have to make a choice between [test case A] and [test case D].  Pick A
     or D, but not both, and tell us why.

If the WG had wanted feedback there was much better ways of requesting it.


> Your response presumably means that you refuse to provide any input. 
> I take it, therefore, that you will not complain when your views, 
> whatever they happen to be, are not taken account of when the 
> decision is made.
> 
> Pat

I have provided lots of input, both previously and also in response to the
request, part of which was to the effect that the request is ill-formed.
I have, moreover, provided two different ways of looking at literals in
response to the request, as well as several other proposals for datatyping.

peter

Received on Wednesday, 17 July 2002 14:29:06 UTC