RE: API for RDF: locutor

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Stefan Decker wrote:

> ... (but contrarily to the consensus found on the list
> i'am still convinced "locutors" are fundamental and should go into the 
> RDF-datamodel,
> and thus into the API.)

I'm not so sure... here's why, in no particular order:

1. The reification mechanism is sufficient to encapsulate the notion of
 'locutor'.

2. Not all RDF problem domains/applications may need the overhead of
tracking RDF statements (not all applications of RDF are KR problems)

3. It's possible to envisage a higher-level API that builds on a
fundamental RDF API to support easy access to locutors- ie,
several levels of API that add value to underlying levels. Bear in mind
though that these are only an interface: the RDF model they present does
not have to be implemented (nor should it be) naively.
 However, it would be up to the implementation to 'fake' the existence
of RDF triples that are implicit in its locutor-friendly
implementation; since people can always drop back to the basic "ask
about the triples" style of querying the RDF model.



-- 
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44(0)117 9287163 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 RFC822 jan.grant@bris.ac.uk
Goedel would be proud - I'm both inconsistent _and_ incomplete.

Received on Wednesday, 8 March 2000 04:49:02 UTC