Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3

Comments on http://infomesh.net/2002/notation3/


I have a serious problem with a document on N3 that starts out saying that
N3 is a ``shorthand non-XML serialization of RDF''.  I view this statement
as wrong and, worse, completely misleading.  Most uses of N3 that I have
seen are not RDF.  Indeed, the second paragraph in
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3 makes it quite clear that N3 is
supposed to be much more than yet another serialization of RDF.  The
document itself alludes to the non-correspondence of N3 and RDF when it
says there is ``a notable lack of analogies for various features of N3 in
XML RDF''.

The document goes on to state that N3 ``forms a good introduction into
[sic] many key principles of the Semantic Web''.  Well if you count among
the key principles of the Semantic Web a lack of both syntax and semantics,
then I'll go along with this statement, but I would hope that the Semantic
Web would not continue to espouse these principles.


Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Friday, 23 August 2002 10:23:02 UTC