Back in the 1990s I used RDF as the model for a metadata database of on-line resources for people living with HIV and AIDS (the SEAHORSE project. Much water has flowed under the metaphorical bridge since then, but yesterday I found myself seriously using RDF for the first time in ages and I thought I would briefly comment on how the state of the art has advanced over the intervening decade. Read more
Compared with the overt structure of ISO Topic Maps, the better-known RDF is free-wheeling anarchy. To make sense of RDF you need to impose additional structures on top of RDF itself; these can be conventions embodied in your program code, or specifications layered on top of RDF like RDF Schema and OWL. I have found that the concepts of topic maps are useful in understanding the work I have been doing with RDF. Here’s an example. Read more
Naturally at New Year we were talking about the philosophical problem of identity and how it manifests in (for example) rules for combining Topic Maps for topics representing identical subjects, and how there are some interesting identity shennanigans in Homestuck. Here’s three of them, plus a bonus webcomic link that (unlike Homestuck) is not 7500 pages long. Read more