Re: A triple is not unique.

> "McBride, Brian" wrote:
> 
> > The number 1 is not unique.  If you have a 1 in your computer
> > and Dan has a 1 in his computer, and I refer to the number 1,
> > then which 1 am I referring to?
> >
> > The point here is that the triple is abstract.  What you have
> > in your computer is a representation of a triple, not the triple
> > itself.
> 

I think that we have to differentiate between
a type and instances of a type. 1 is unique when 
it is a generic representation of number 1 whereas
each instance of representations of 1 is different
on different systems.  Similarly, a triple (s,p,o)
is a generic representation.  Each instance of
a triple may be different if we want it that way.
However, I can bring some parallel scenario from
relational databases.  Relational databases maintain
metadata and data for relations and attributes
(similar to triples (s,p,o)).  But when I fetch
employee record, it means same thing to me irrespective
of any remote client system with different
internal representations. 

I believe that notion of schema (or model)
definitions and
conforming to such definitions will resolve such
RDF problems.  One can make schema definitions as
generic as possible resulting into wide differences
or no differences in instances.  
URIs can be relating to such schema
objects making triples unique.

-- Shyam Sarkar (ssarkar@ayushnet.com)

Received on Sunday, 19 November 2000 14:01:10 UTC