- From: Frank van Harmelen <Frank.van.Harmelen@cs.vu.nl>
- Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 16:46:56 +0100
- CC: www-webont-wg@w3.org
Smith, Michael K wrote: > Great document. Thanks! > Two comments. > > 1. Negation and disjunction considered hard? > > I would place these in the class "easy to understand by our target > group". Is your categorization due to complexity for tool > builders/reasoners? Certainly reasoning etc becomes harder when disjunctions are involved. For the "target group", of course we can argue about this. My experience is that: - people don't use union of classes all that much - the only use of negation is for disjointness statements, and these are included as separate items Also: people can't/don't deal with nestings of these. But I agree, it's certainly an area where I can well imagine we go the other way than our "first stab". > 2. Syntax (nag, nag, nag) > > Determining the semantic components of OWL should be our priority, > no question. > > The only thing I take exception to here is "we expect that > a single syntax won't do". I don't know quite what that means. In > one sense, I agree whole-heartedly, let a thousand flowers bloom. > > That said, we are defining a language. There must be a rigorous > statement of what the sentences of that language are. These are the > strings for which our semantics will provide a meaning. > > One syntax description will be primary. Nothing prevents anyone from > providing what they think are better human or machine engineered > syntax on top of this. In particular, the WG can specify a > translation from the definitional syntax to an alternative we deem > critical. I agree. One syntax should be primary. The document should have expressed that better. I think your last paragraph says it exactly right (provided the translation is both ways). Frank. ----
Received on Thursday, 7 March 2002 10:47:01 UTC