- From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 14:14:19 -0700
- To: Peter Crowther <Peter.Crowther@melandra.com>
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
> > From: Jim Hendler [mailto:jhendler@darpa.mil] > > DAML+OIL did not have authority to change anything in RDF or to > > otherwise impact the RDF spec except by example. > >Jim has (as usual) got right to the heart of the problem. Feedback between >designers of different architecture layers is essential if you want to >create a coherent architecture. So far, the sequence has been that RDF has >taken XML as a given, and DAML has taken RDF as a given --- feed-forward >with no feedback. In fact, both XML and RDF are subject to periodic >revision, but there hadn't been the time and experience of using them at the >time the initial versions were formalised (obviously!). That experience is >now starting to accrue. > >I think two interesting questions can be posed here: > >1) How could RDF be changed/augmented/better documented to make it a firmer >base on which to build DAML+OIL? Or indeed for any other languages for expressing content. No doubt there will be others. >2) How could XML be changed/augmented/better documented to make it a firmer >base on which to build RDF? > >... and, I guess, (3) is there any chance of these changes happening? (3), >at least, would be helped by keeping the dialogue constructive; but (1) and >(2) require constructive criticism of those existing standards in the light >of practical experience. For example, could the appropriate parts of the >Fikes & McGuinness paper be used within the next revision of RDF to provide >that clear semantics that many within DAML+OIL wish to see? I would suggest that the DAML+OIL model-theoretic semantics is a much more useful (and certainly more compact) style of semantic specification. The axiomatic 'semantics' is not in fact a semantics: it is a transliteration into yet another formalism, one that also requires a semantic theory to give it any formal meaning. Such translations, while often useful, are always hostage to the semantic theory of the target language. Pat Hayes --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Monday, 2 April 2001 17:12:22 UTC