- From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
- Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 07:23:58 -0400
- To: connolly@w3.org
- Cc: phayes@ai.uwf.edu, www-rdf-logic@w3.org
From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org> Subject: Re: What do the ontologists want Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 22:22:53 -0500 > pat hayes wrote: > > Not at all: I think you have put your finger right on the button. There is a mismatch between the reality and the rhetoric of RDF. As a general-purpose graph-structure-encoding formalism, it is just fine. (It has a truly awful surface syntax, but everyone agrees that is a crock and needs replacing.) But it hasnt been sold as that: it has been sold as a universal knowledge/information representation language, with a clear semantics which is both utterly simple (relational triples) and simultaneously universal, post-Goedelian, trans-Tarskian and magically universal, due to the Power of Reification. That is why it is going to be the, I don't know, the magical essence of the Semantic Web, and why W3C seems to be so committed to it. > > Oh for cryin out loud, Pat, just cut it out. Exactly > who is taking that position? Cite sources or retract it. > > Yes, there has been some confusion, and yes, some folks > are saying things about RDF that can't possibly be > true, but I think folks are here to learn and > build something useful. And insulting > them/us by taking some things that they/we may have said > exaggerating them to the ends of the earth isn't > getting us anywhere, is it? I think that Pat has precisely characterised the situation. There have been numerous posts on this group extolling the virtues of reification. Many times I think that I am listening to late-night infomercial: Reification---it chops, it slices, it dices. No language should be without it. No language needs more than it. Get yours now. Easy payment terms of just endless hours of frustration from now to eternity. [Only partly in jest.] > -- > Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/ > Peter F. Patel-Schneider Bell Labs Research
Received on Thursday, 17 May 2001 07:25:49 UTC