Hi All --
Hamish (or David?) wrote...
Idiom exists *within* language.
RDF is a language, the relational data model
is another. Anyone who has learned a foreign language to any depth will
attest that idioms do not move easily between languages.
I'd be wary of convincing yourself that you are developing a data model
independently of any language for expressing it.
and earlier, Tom P wrote that what is being modeled is
1) A Manufacturer makes products.
2) A Manufacturer distributes products to wholesalers in lots.
3) A Wholesaler distributes products to retailers in lots.
4) A Wholesaler stocks products.
5) A Retailer stocks products.
6) A Retailer sells products individually.
Perhaps the underlying problem with boiling 1) - 6) down to either
RDF or a relational schema is that we have to throw away a lot of the
information that is in the English sentences.
The result, in either RDF or relational schema is more ambiguous than the
English it came from, so this opens up plenty of debate about the pluses
and minuses of various low level modeling notations.
We could however, reverse the situation, and say that we will stick with
some version English as the modeling language. Then, RDF and
relational schema take on the role of the low level data structure
notations they were perhaps meant to be all along.
But English is still ambiguous, you say. Yes, but not
as ambiguous because you can keep more information
around. And if you can make it executable, you get a nice
"English means what English does" situation.
There are several efforts along these lines [0], including Attempto [1]
and Internet Business Logic [2]. The latter generates SQL schemas
and queries directly from lightweight English.
If we choose to think about RDF as relational triples (N3, Ntriple) then
the same things apply.
Cheers,
-- Adrian
[0] If anyone can post a comprehensive list of such projects, that
would be great.
[1]
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/schwitter96attempto.html
[2]
www.reengineeringllc.com
INTERNET BUSINESS LOGIC
www.reengineeringllc.com
Dr. Adrian Walker
Reengineering LLC
PO Box 1412
Bristol
CT 06011-1412 USA
Phone: USA 860 583 9677
Cell: USA 860 830 2085
Fax: USA 860 314 1029