Re: New RIF drafts

On 16 Apr 2008, at 13:27, Boley, Harold wrote:
>
> This is referring to
>
> http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/FLD#Well-formed_Terms_and_Formulas
>
> Example 2 (A nested RIF-FLD group annotated with metadata).
>
> where it says (emphasis added):
>
> For better readability, we use the compact URI notation which assumes
> that prefixes are macro-expanded into IRIs. As explained earlier, this
> is just a space-saving device and *not part of the RIF syntax*.

Ah, I see, sorry - I'd misunderstood the "not part of the RIF syntax"  
part. I thought the intention was to emphasise that it was sugar, not  
a semantic feature. I did wonder about the italics, but the fact that  
the whole thing was inside a <tt> backed up that interpretation.

I would say that if you felt compelled to use a notational shortcut in  
the specification describing the syntax, so will people attempting to  
use it in anger.

I did understand that the presentation syntax is just that (I referred  
to it as such in my email), but it seems like the thing that humans  
are most likely to interact with, normative or not.

- Steve

> We tried to use a different (italic) font in the wiki for the still
> 'meta-level' compact URI notation:
>
> <tt>dc</tt> ''expands into''
> <tt><nowiki>http://</nowiki>dublincore.org/documents/dces/</tt>
>
> Obviously, this was not clear enough.
>
> I agree that XQuery, SPARQL, RIF, etc. should converge
> on a common syntax soon.
>
> -- Harold
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-rules-request@w3.org [mailto:www-rdf-rules-request@w3.org 
> ]
> On Behalf Of Dan Brickley
> Sent: April 16, 2008 9:00 AM
> To: Steve Harris
> Cc: Sandro Hawke; semantic-web@w3.org; www-rdf-rules@w3.org
> Subject: Re: New RIF drafts
>
>
> Steve Harris wrote:
>>
>> On 15 Apr 2008, at 18:07, Sandro Hawke wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> We have some new drafts from the Rule Interchange Format (RIF)
> Working
>>> Group.  While the group is not targeted at producing a "Semantic Web
>>> Rule Language", its output will cover much of the same space.  I
> suggest
>>> anyone interested in rule languages (especially from a web
> perspective)
>>> take a look at what RIF is doing and send comments:
>>>
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-bld/   (our first RIF dialect, Horn with
>>> Equality)
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-fld/   (framework for more logic dialects)
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-rdf-owl/  (how to use BLD with RDF, OWL-DL,
>>> OWL-Full)
>>
>> I'm more-or-less ignorant of the technical issues here, but at a
>> surface level the presentation syntax given in example 2 of the FLD
>> appears to have some arbitrary differences from SPARQL, eg the use of
>>   abbr expands into uri
>> instead of
>>   PREFIX abbr: <uri>
>> and the use of ()s for grouping, as opposed to {}s, and some of the
>> operators being prefix and some being infix.
>>
>> There may well be cultural reasons for this syntax, but I expect many
>> people to want to work with both syntaxes, and some commonality might
>> be helpful in reducing the learning curve.
> You know, I was thinking just the same thing as I saw some XQuery and
> SPARQL alongside each other. It would be really lovely if SPARQL and  
> RIF
>
> could share at least some common syntax. My brain is filling up  
> rapidly
> with all these variations...
>
> Dan
>
> --
> http://danbri.org/
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2008 13:38:16 UTC