[Versa] Issue 1, better literal and datatype support

[Uche Ogbuji]

On Fri, 2005-08-12 at 09:48 -0600, Michael Olson wrote:
> On Aug 12, 2005, at 9:27 AM, Uche Ogbuji wrote:
> >>> Did the latest RDF specs really do that?  That's really bloody messy.
> >>> So to what extent do these magic blank nodes confer identity on
> >>> (previously identified) literals?
> >>
> >> You should read the spec.  There is equiality between literals.
> >
> > Equality has nothing to do with identity.
> 
> If they are equal then they are identical.

Which is a big change in semantics from the original RDF specs.  In
effect it changes the meaning of a literal node, from unidentified node
to unnamed node, and fudgees them together with resources in the core
semantics.

This is a really bad conceptual mistake: on the scale of the
topic/occurence distinction in Topic Maps.


> given:
> a --> b --> "c"
> a --> d --> "c"
> 
> you get (with simple entailment only)
> 
> _a --> _b --> _c
> _a --> _d --> _c
> 
> Same if you do and have d-entailment
> 
> a --> b --> "c"
> a --> d --> "c"^^xsd:string
> 
> >
> >>>   To what extent does this bloat the
> >>> model?
> >>>
> >>
> >> It actually helps in so many ways (having just implemented it).  Both
> >> in model size (now a statements table only needs three columns not
> >> four),
> >
> > You mean "column count", not "model size", right?
> >
> 
> No, and model size.  No identical literals have the same blank node  
> they reduce the number of string literals in the model.

OK.  I had to understand that these RDF specs have now conflated
identity with value.

*sigh*.  RDF is going down slowly down the drain for me.


> > No.  I don't intend to turn on reply-to munging.  We don't have it on
> > for any of the other lists on lists.fourthought.com because I (and many
> > others) think it's bad form.  Even mailman agrees, having munging off  
> > as
> > a default, but that doesn't matter.  The debate has raged for years,  
> > and
> > I'm firmly on one side, and I won't administer any list with reply-to
> > munging (I barely tolerate being on them).
> >
> 
> Geez.  The net picks such weird things to piss and moan about......

You're lucky to have missed one of the biggest perma-flamewars of all
time:

http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
http://www.metasystema.net/essays/reply-to.mhtml

> > I should do a better job of trimming headers (Ctrl-L in Evolution  
> > rather
> > than Shift-Ctrl-R, BTW), and I shall.
> >
> 
> If only it was so easy on a Mac.....

Wow.  It's hard to imagine an MUA in the 21st century that doesn't have
reply-to-list, but I googled, and checked Lori's computer, and it seems
Apple.Mail does lack this.

I'll see if I can find out more.  Might be a buried pref.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net                    http://fourthought.com
http://copia.ogbuji.net                   http://4Suite.org
Use CSS to display XML, part 2 - http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/x-dw-x-xmlcss2-i.html
XML Output with 4Suite & Amara - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/04/20/py-xml.html
Use XSLT to prepare XML for import into OpenOffice Calc - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-oocalc/
Schema standardization for top-down semantic transparency - http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think31.html