Two Rule Charter thoughts

I make no claim for their originality. I just want to make them.

1. Syntax.

I really really really want it to be part of the groups charter that 
they are allowed, encouraged, expected to consider extensions to the 
RDF "Abstract Graph" syntax. The syntax parts of the charter all talk 
about concrete syntaxes. I would hate for the rules group to have to 
wait upon some future RDF Core group to define, e.g., non asserted 
graph fragments (or have to adopt some monstrosity like reification or 
weird use of literals or encoding the syntax in triples). It might be 
too much to force them to answer to all our hopes, but they should have 
the chance :)

2. Programming "in the large"

Some parts of the charter are justified by the need to handle "rules on 
the Web", i.e., nigh arbitrary combinations of rules from a variety of 
sources. I'm not sure about that, but I do think that we should expect 
fairly *big*, heterogeneously developed rule sets. Most (modern) Logic 
Programming systems have *some* sort of module/information hiding 
system. I, personally, have no clue as to the issue about combining 
"large scale" and "Web scale" rule development, but it strikes me that 
*not* considering "large scale" development tools could reduce the 
usefulness and the audience for the language.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:54:53 UTC