>> I use RDF like a next-generation relational database and think that RDF >> could be sold to many people this way (there is possibly are larger audience >> for this than for ontologies, reasoning, etc.). Especially considering how >> No-SQL is currently taking off. This part needs some love and seems to >> suffer from the almost exclusive focus on semantics. > > Fair enough. I guess Im not sure how this next-generation-RDB usage fits with > the RDF semantics, but I'd be interested in pursuing this further. Does this > RDF/RDB++ vision provide any guidance towards what RDF is supposed to, like, > mean? Pointers?
Does it have to mean anything? I’ve always found tuple calculus and relational algebra quite intuitive, but as far as I remember, it is very light on semantics, everything is "just data". URIs as symbols are useful, but I would not know how to express the concepts they represent formally. What else is needed? A simple schema language, which should probably assume a closed world and unique names (unless specified otherwise). I’m surprised how something that is trivial (and common!) for relational databases is very hard for SPARQL (for example, letting SPARQL return a table where each row is a resource [1]). Additionally, it would be useful if SPARQL allowed one to do backward-chaining via rules (some RIF implementations seem to do this). I can only come up with a few use-cases (sub-properties, transitive properties), but those would definitely help. [1] http://www.w3.org/2009/12/rdf-ws/papers/ws17 There might not be anything in it, scientifically, but it would help to sell RDF to a community that is largely orthogonal to the one that is after RDF + semantics. -- Dr. Axel Rauschmayer [email protected] http://hypergraphs.de/ ### Hyena: connected information manager, free at hypergraphs.de/hyena/
