RE: A modest proposal for reforming RDF

Drew,

Your document asserts:

  The disadvantage is that we can't assert a complex
  expression without asserting its parts.

I'm not convinced this is true.  This can be done in
RDF, but requires reification, whose syntax is, shall
we say, verbose.

It is, as you have done, important to separate the RDF
XML syntax and the underlying data model.  It would be
helpful to me to understand whether your proposal to
reform RDF is motivated by dislike of the syntax, or
by the data model being insufficiently expressive.

If the problem is the syntax, then might a new
syntax for the underlying data model solve the problem.

If the problem is the expressiveness of the data model,
I'd really appreciate an example to help me understand
its limitations.

Brian McBride
HPLabs

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Drew McDermott [mailto:drew.mcdermott@yale.edu]
> Sent: 13 December 2000 23:03
> To: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
> Subject: A modest proposal for reforming RDF
> 
> 
> 
> I have put together a proposal for rethinking RDF, and doing away with
> the "graph model."  If anyone is interested, it's at 
> 
> http://www.cs.yale.edu/~dvm/daml/proposal.html
> 
> The basic idea is to embed logic in XML, while retaining the current
> RDF idea of "descriptions" (names of objects followed by lists of
> their properties). 
> 
>                                              -- Drew McDermott
>

Received on Thursday, 14 December 2000 13:36:02 UTC