Unnecessary {x a List} triples considered a waste from Tim Berners-Lee on 2003-03-25 (www-rdf-comments@w3.org from January to March 2003) (original) (raw)

This comes with apologies as a late last call comment on the RDF syntax document. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/#nodeElement

I believe that in 7.2.19 Production parseTypeCollectionPropertyElt the wording

"""For each event nin s, the following statement is added to the graph:

n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#List> .

"""

adds redundant triples to the graph. I believe that waste of time and space at this level in the architecture is unnecessary, and that that wording should be removed (and any other reference to the adding type statements for Lists where a rdf:first is there).

It is trivial to restore the triples for anyone who wants them fro a graph without them, using { ?x rdf:first ?y } => { ?x a rdf:List }.

Clutter at this level of the semantic web stack is very much of a burden.

I am sorry that I had never noticed that line before. I have been using lists for a long time without generating those redundant triples.

Tim BL