[tmql-wg] TMQL, next round

[Gabriel Hopmans]

Hello Robert,

Before you are going to talk too much too yourself and listing the issues
one by one..

For the second issue (see here below) I have something. I think there should
be several functions and predicates be included in TMQL. For instance a
SUMMATION function on financial data is very essential. Customers need to
see the ROI of Topic Maps :)
The only question is then which pretty basic functions and predicates do we
need and which one are more typically in the direction of an 'ontology
definition language'.

By the way very cool work on TMQL and impressive issue list.. lot of high
impacts ;)

Gabriel

Issue 2 is:

TMQL Issue: TM paradigmatic functions, predicates, templates, ontologies
Impact on Language: very high

Background
TMQL uses the TM paradigm not hypocritically in that it offers querying of
data according to the TM paradigm; TMQL also
tries to exploit the paradigm for language features which are traditionally
not seen as topic-mappish.
In this sense language constructs such as functions, predicates, but also
namespace prefixes are interpreted as subjects,
represented in a map by topics of certain predefined TMQL types, such as
tmql:function.
A function is a systematic functional dependency over particular sets of
values. The age of a person is functionally
dependent on (a) the person's birthdate and (b) the current time.
Similarily, a predicate is a constraint on a constellation of
particular values.
Accordingly, both are expressing additional knowledge about a problem
domain. As the modelling of an application domain
is usually done via an ontology definition language, one can argue that
functions and predicates should NOT be part of
TMQL, which is meants as a data access language.
Structured Discussion
? Should Functions and Predicates be included into TMQL
- both are ontological information, should go into an ontology language
- yes, but TMCL will not offer them, neither does CTM, ...
+ they are EXTREMELY useful to organize the query, uhm knowledge
- SPARQL does not have function declarations or predicate declarations


On 2/26/07, Robert Barta <rho at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> You may have noticed that the latest TMQL draft was submitted
> recently
>
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