Re: Datatypes, syntax and equality

On 2002-07-22, Sandy Nicholson uttered to Jonathan Borden:

>In the first example, how can you possibly enumerate all valid equality
>`functions'? As the RDF property doesn't seem to come into it, it seems
>that all you're really doing is comparing strings.

I wouldn't say so. Instead I would view the question from the perspective
of typed literals, since that is what we already have. How? Literals are
supposed to have language and parse type as part of them, right now. The
precise question that is being asked now of typed literals applies to two
identical literal strings with different languages and/or types, today, so
the situation couldn't get much worse by including arbitrary URI's in the
permissible range of parse type.

I would view the question of typed literals fairly simply -- if they do
not have equal parse type (including xsd: assigned types), language and
string value, they are not equal at the base RDF/S level. Beyond that,
higher levels in the cake may interpret the question differently. That
sort of reinterpretation is also a fact already present otherwise, since
e.g. log: primitives might well make something asserted which isn't at the
base RDF level.

In other words, I don't see the problem. Why not simply extend parse type
to deal with arbitrary datatypes, and be happy with the result?
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2

Received on Monday, 22 July 2002 17:50:57 UTC