On 7/1/2010 8:44 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
Jeremy, your argument is perfectly sound from your company's POV, but
not from a broader perspective. Of course, any change will incur costs
by those who have based their assumptions upon no change happening
I was asking for the economic benefit of the change, as opposed to the
elegance benefit.
Personally, I am wholly convinced by the elegance argument - but it will
not convince my management, nor should it.
I suspect there are several other companies and other open source
activities that have investments that assume literals do not occur in
subject position.
Elegance is not, IMO, a sufficient argument to negate those investments.
(The sort of thing we are talking about, is what sort of display is
appropriate for a subject of a triple - we know that it is not a
literal, so certain code paths, and options are not considered).
Of course, in an industrial consortium costs to one member maybe
justified by benefits to another - but costs to any member do need to be
offset by some benefit to some member ... I have yet to see much of an
argument (Henry got a small bit of the way), that there are any such
benefits (i.e. ones which have a dollar, euro or yuan value). I have
pointed to dollar costs ... I expect to see some such benefit. I don't
think that expectation is unreasonable, more a boundary that keeps
people honest ... and not just indulging in an intellectual game (he
says politely).
Jeremy
