Re: [DotGNU]Implement RDF in a Universal Data Structure

[Norbert Bollow]

Seth Johnson <address@hidden> wrote:

> > I want to take this to a higher level.  Instead of stopping at the
> > assertion structure of RDF, I propose that we implement a
> > similarly universal generalization about relations (among data
> > entities).

Interesting idea.  I like it.  I'm not sure though whether it will be
useful for any practical purposes.

> > Build this into DotGNU.  Make a language that speaks in terms of
> > these abstractions.  I call the language CCL, or Context Control
> > Language, and I call the basic structure of a context "packet" or
> > "message" CTP, or Context Transfer Protocol.  CTP can either be
> > defined as something immediately above TCP and immediately below
> > the application layer, in a binary way, or we could define it as
> > something correlative with HTTP, in a more textual way.

Whereever you put it, until it has proved its usefulness, it'll be an
experimental project... therefore, I wouldn't expect other DotGNU
development projects to introduce additional complexity in order to
accomodate your CCL and/or CTP.

Peter Minten <address@hidden> replied:

> In the infosphere (the world of info, cyberspace is a subset of it)
> everything can be expressed using subject-link-object
> terminology. So everything can be expressed as RDF.  Or more exactly
> everything can be expressed as a web.

This is true.  However, it is also true that everything in the
infosphere can be expressed as a stream of binary digits.

The real question is, what way of representing some information
is useful for the task at hand?  The answer will depend on the
information and on what you want to do with it.

For example, in Abdabi (the service discovery system that I'm
planning to put together) RDF will use used for input and
output of service descriptions.  However, internally, for
purposes of data processing (selecting an interesting subset
of the available information) a different data representation
will be used.

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
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Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch