Re: rdf inclusion

From: Graham Klyne <GK@ninebynine.org>
Subject: Re: rdf inclusion
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 14:04:02 +0100

> At 05:11 PM 5/23/02 -0500, pat hayes wrote:
> >This isn't saying we should abandon RDF, only that we have to be able to 
> >use some other kinds of brick to do some of the other things.
> 
> We seem to keep on bumping up against this in various guises, and I'm not 
> sure why it seems to such an intractable problem for this community.
> 
> Pragmatically, it seems that any number of programmers have been able to 
> build things using RDF in ways that respect the simple assertional nature 
> of RDF for the most part, but also add features as needed for the purpose 
> at hand.  Rigorous logic seems to be saying that there is something wrong 
> about this, but these implemented systems work (pretty much) as their 
> programmer-designers intended.  Who's right here?  It's hard to understand 
> why, with so many top-class minds working at and around this problem, 
> there's no clearer general insight into this dichotomy (formalism vs 
> implementation) than there was (say) 18 months ago.
> 
> #g

Who is right here?  Well the ``programmers'' are right, in my view, at
least in so far as they are getting the job done by using RDF as a part of
a larger system, and maybe even as a part of a larger formalism.  The
logically-minded contributors to this group are also right, in my view, but
they are not saying that the programmers are doing anything wrong, at least
I don't remember any statements to that effect from thes contributors.

Who is wrong here?  Well, in my view, anyone who says that these extra
features are part of RDF is wrong.  Further, any programmer who removes
part of RDF and still claims to be doing RDF is also wrong, at least in my
view.


Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Received on Friday, 24 May 2002 09:50:44 UTC