• From: "Liam R. E. Quin" <liam@w...>
• To: Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@g...>, "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2016 13:01:13 -0400

On Tue, 2016-10-04 at 13:59 -0500, Peter Hunsberger wrote:
> Forgot to copy the list on this response....
> 
> Without giving this much thought; you could probably prove that all
> data modes that are "computationally  tractable" are reducible to a
> model that is isomorphic to a triple store.

It turns out even RDF has moved away from triples - an RDF "named
graph" associates (implicitly) additional information with each triple.

For example, consider needing to track the date on which each fact was
entered into a database. If you store that as a separate triple (on
such-and-such a date triple-id foo was added by bar (oops that's four))
you need to record when that information was added and by whom. So you
end up using tyically 6 or more items rather than three. The triples
are a fiction, what Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart called
"lies-we-tell-to-children", like "an atom is an indivisible particle"
:)

So even RDF isn't reducible to RDF!

Liam

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/00919517
04

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Converting a variety of data formats, containingvarious kinds of data into a common intermediate form
    • From: Geert Bormans <geert@g...>
  • Re: Converting a variety of data formats, containingvarious kinds of data into a common intermediate form
    • From: "Norman Gray" <norman@a...>

• References:
  • Converting a variety of data formats, containing various kinds ofdata into a common intermediate form
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
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    • From: Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@g...>