Re: literals and typing

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pat Hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
>To: "Geoff Chappell" <geoff@sover.net>
>Cc: <www-rdf-logic@w3.org>
>Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 2:22 PM
>Subject: RE: literals and typing
>
>
>
>>  >From my perspective, the only of those that is inline with (the intent
>of)
>>  >current practice is P. Though it seems that X is perhaps a viable case
>under
>>  >P - i.e. there would be nothing stopping an individual from declaring
>under
>>  >P that the range of property <p> is something like xmldatatype and then
>>  >saying  <subject> <p> "<xsd:integer>10</xsd:integer>". The value would be
>>  >opaque to the rdf inference process but could still be processed and be
>>  >meaningful externally. But it doesn't seem to make sense (to me) to have
>the
>>  >inference process looking within the literal labels.
>  >
>>  Well, take a look at the blizzard of discussion on the RDF Core WG
>archive.
>>
>>  To elaborate on the above, BTW, I just posted a longer comparison:
>>  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2001Nov/0295.html
>>
>
>Wow - I'm surprised at the conclusion... doesn't seem to me that S
>(described in your email linked to above) is a good choice (though I'm
>admittedly more concerned with how useful RDF is for soving problems than in
>how well a group's charter is met). What of the RDF that's been written to
>date that doesn't conform to this? what of rdf that will written in the
>future when one doesn't know the datatype of a property?

Well, yes; but all the proposals have snags, unfortunately. I wish 
there was a clear winner, but I think we will have to compromise 
somewhere. I personally would love to see something like X, in its 
stark simplicity, but I doubt if the RDF core WG will be willing to 
adopt a new, unproven, URI scheme as part of the standard. And the P 
schemes are rather 'delicate' in that they require datayping schemes 
to be carefully crafted to be upward compatible, and will completely 
fail if they are not. Although S does require much existing RDF to be 
rewritten, the rewrite looks quite neat in RDF/XML. Your last point 
is a good one, however.

But the jury is still out, and I think there will be a period of 
asking the community for its views, so be ready to chime in with 
yours.

Pat

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Received on Friday, 9 November 2001 16:18:14 UTC