- From: Jim Hendler <hendler@cs.umd.edu>
- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 10:33:08 -0400
- To: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>, guha@guha.com
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
At 9:30 AM -0400 8/15/02, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote: >From: "R.V.Guha" <guha@guha.com> >Subject: Re: Semantics, in particular DAML+OIL semantics >Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 14:46:58 -0700 > >> I am referring to the ability to treat classes and [properties] as first >> class objects. > >Hmm. I would instead say that RDF and RDFS treat everything, classes and >properties as well, as third-class objects. There is *very* little that >one can say about classes and predicates in RDF and RDFS. this strikes me as a strange argument - it is hard to say much of anything about anything in RDF/RDFS, which is why we need OWL, an eventual rules langauge, etc. The bottom layer of a network needs to be fairly simple - the things on top extend -- this works in every other field and across the web. If traditional approached to logic cannot live with this, the solution is to find new ways, not to break the Semantic WEB. I remember a bunch of proofs I saw in the early 90s that the "logic" underlying hypertext systems was such that Tim's stuff couldn't work. I think he did the right thing in ignoring those criticisms and building it the way he did -- may not be as elegant as the early systems, but sure works well in the wild.... > >The difficulty arises when one wants to say more about classes and >properties and, in particular, construct complex classes and properties or >construct complex sentences, i.e., treat them as at least second-class >objects. > >peter -- Professor James Hendler hendler@cs.umd.edu Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies 301-405-2696 Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab. 301-405-6707 (Fax) Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 240-731-3822 (Cell) http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler
Received on Thursday, 15 August 2002 10:33:12 UTC