Re: RDF vocabulary definitions

Richard H. McCullough wrote:
> That seems backwards.
> Shouldn't you assert the existence of members, even if you can't specify 
> all their properties?
> The existence of the class logically depends on the existence of its 
> members.

This may be true, but it doesn't refute the fact that you may want to 
make statements about a class without actually defining any of its 
members. You could, for example, define a class's default properties, 
the relationships it has to other classes etc. - without actually 
wanting to, or needing to, make statements about members of that class.

> Ios there a mechanism for guaranteeing that members are found?

No

> I suppose that's been taken into account. 
> If so, sounds like a reasonable, iterative, engineering solution.

Yes - I think that is a good way of putting it. In some sense all RDF/S 
documents are work-in-progress.

An rdfs:Class with no explicitly defined instances is still valid RDF - 
whether or not such a class is useful, I'll leave as a question to 
others with more experience.

> I am an engineer, so I appreciate such things.
> Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

No worries.

-- 
Murray Spork
Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI)
The Redcone Project
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Phone: +61-7-3864-9488
Email: m.spork@qut.edu.au
Web: http://redcone.gbst.com/

Received on Friday, 22 November 2002 00:53:30 UTC