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<br><div><div>On 30-Jan-08, at 12:29 AM, Xuân Baldauf wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"> In my work for creating CTM documents as a means to collect information in an ad-hoc manner, I almost always want to write down the source of the information I got. I do it like this:<br> <blockquote>john<br> - "John Lennon"<br> works_for({the_beatles<br> - "The Beatles"<br> isa music_group<br> })<br> died_in(new_york) ~{? source_resource(<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>) }<br> </blockquote> Verbally, this means:<br> <blockquote>John Lennon, who worked for the music group "The Beatles", died in New York, according to the resource <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>.</blockquote> Now try to convert this to one of the recent CTM notations:<br> <blockquote>john<br> - "John Lennon"<br> works_for(the_beatles)<br> died_in(new_york) ~random_topic_654166<br> <br> the_beatles<br> - "The Beatles"<br> isa music_group<br> <br> random_topic_654166<br> source_resource(<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>)<br> <br> </blockquote> I think the latter notation (be it pre- or post-Kyoto) has certain disadvantages:<br> <ol> <li>It takes 11 lines instead of 7 lines while providing not more information.</li> <li> It is harder (and takes longer) to read in human language (at least in my languages). In this sequence, it would read like “John Lennon worked for The Beatles and died in New York. The Beatles is a music group. That John Lennon died in New York, this is according to the resource <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>. ” </li> <li>It forces the author to invent an ad-hoc random, but unique, topic identifier, while the topic identifier is of no meaning or purpose for the author. Being forced to generate a unique topic identifier is quite a hard task. It takes longer then devising a password. Try to devise a password nobody would be able to guess, and then ensure that it is different from all the other passwords you have.<br> </li> <li>Information belonging semantically closely together is spread out. This makes the document less readable, less changeable and harder to understand its meaning. This effect is even worse when having multiple sources of information for one topic.</li> </ol> <br> This is why I would like to have subordinate clauses in CTM. For me, having subordinate clauses or not in CTM makes a difference like having closures in a programming language or not. However, I do not care about the exact syntax.<br> <br> I see that others have the same idea:<br> <ul> <li>Robert Barta wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:20080129152705.GA3931@mando.int.devc.at" type="cite">[...] <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">N3 is a good example of how nesting can help to define complex
structures in a compact form without additional mechanism for
templates.
</pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""><!---->I agree, and that is also where AsTMa= is going. Effectively,
everywhere where a topic id is allowed, a fully-fledged topic
definition can be.</pre> </blockquote> </li> <li>Dmitry wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:8CFE6FB3-0117-1000-D4BF-130ADAE86FAC-Webmail-10023@mac.com" type="cite">[...]<br> <pre wrap="">I would prefer it this way:
paul
~ o:Paul_McCartney;
# <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://....#Paul_McCartney"><http://....#Paul_McCartney></a>;
- "Paul McCartney";
first_name - "Paul";
last_name - "McCartney";
isa person, musician;
o:works-for [o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles], o:The-Wings;
o:homepage <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www..."><http://www...></a>
</pre> </blockquote> Note the “[o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles]” (which, by the way, has an unmatched double-quote, it should read as “[o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles"]” I suppose). Apparently, the “[o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles"]” is a subordinate clause, that is, a reference to a topic while explaining a little bit about that topic.<br> </li> </ul> Do you think that having subordinate clauses in CTM is a good thing?<br> <br></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I would vote for nested descriptions (subordinate clauses) with ability to auto generate item identifiers.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Example 1:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>[tc:role_type o:Employee; tc:card_min 1; tc:card_max 1] </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>should create a new topic with auto generated item identifier</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Example 2:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>john </div><div> o:died_in o:NewYork ~# [o:source <<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm></a>] </div><div><br></div><div>"~#" is a an operator for a second type of reification, which provides access to a topic which describes statement, not relationship.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Dmitry</div></div></body></html>