SEM: Re: more on a same-syntax extension from RDF(S) to OWL

> > Perhaps an MT for N3 would be useful.
>
> > One of the major benefitts of N3 over
> > RDF (including N-Triples) is the simple ability to write down a set of
> > statements _without asserting them_.
>
> But RDF, can, sort of, do this.  All you do is set up a bag of reified
> statements.  Well actually there is a lot more that you need to do if you
> want to do useful things with this abilitity, without causing problems,
but
> that is not a syntax issue, but instead has to do with what such things
> mean.

From the syntactic standpoint, RDF reification is not good, because it
greatly complicates the syntactic expression of an unasserted triple (e.g.
one statement becomes three, hence a three fold increase in syntactic
complexity).

From the semantic viewpoint, the connection between a statement and a
reified statement in the RDF MT does not exist or at the very least is not
clear to me.

I consider it _also_ a syntactic issue, because languages which have
cumbersome syntaxes tend not to get used*

Jonathan

*the definition of cumbersome depends on the user. However, note that I do
not consider XML cumbersome. I do consider RDF reification cumbersome. I
assert that a language which is designed to make heavy usage of RDF
reification will be cumbersome (short of changing the syntactic definition
of RDF reification).

Received on Tuesday, 5 March 2002 12:41:24 UTC