Re: LANG: Is a non-RDF triples syntax out of charter?

Jeremy Carroll wrote:
> 
> I remain confident that it is very possible to both have our cake and eat
> it.
> 
> We could even mandate the inclusion of the appropriate processing
> instruction at the top of an OWL Lite document that informs a non-OWL Lite
> aware processor to apply the XSLT transform. That way an XSLT and RDF/XML
> aware processor could read an OWL Lite document without knowing it.
> 
> I guess I feel that a frame oriented XML syntax that isn't constrained by
> RDF/XML's idiosnycronicies is worth the investment. I have a stronger desire
> for maintaining a view of an ontology as a set of RDF triples. I don't think
> these conflict; unless we have a scheduling/resourcing problem.
> 
> Jeremy

I'd actually like to see a non-RDF sytnax for the "heavy" portion of
FOWL (Formerly known as OWL) as well. However, I agree that an XSLT
transform might be a good a way to satisfy the conflicting interests.
One problem with this approach is that we would have to define two
languages and a translation between them. This would at least double the
length of our spec. 

However, a we could choose to define two specs: one for the simpler XML
syntax and one for the RDF syntax. I would argue that the simpler XML
syntax would be the primary one, so as to make the language more
accessible to the large number of people who are not already RDF Schema
converts. The RDF syntax and the XSLT transform could satisfy the needs
of the RDF-philes. I wouldn't consider this the ideal solution (seems
like an awful lot of specs), but it is one I could live with.

Jeff

Received on Friday, 5 April 2002 10:29:18 UTC