Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic Description Logics in Data Management
started 5/23/2003; 6:18:13 AM - last post 5/24/2003; 10:30:23 AM
andrew cooke - Description Logics in Data Management  blueArrow
5/23/2003; 6:18:13 AM (reads: 1618, responses: 4)
Description Logics in Data Management
The fundamental observation underlying [Description Languages] is that there is a benefit to be gained if languages for talking about classes of individuals yield structured objects that can be reasoned with.

This came up in a Haskell discussion about automating licence handling in software. It looks interesting (it's a survey paper) and might expand a little on the RDF post (which I have yet to read).

The code examples are in CLASSIC - the latest version of which is implemented in C++, although they used to use Lisp (which just goes to show that (1) Lisp is dead and (2) there's no bias in this news item).

thanks to Graham Klyne
Posted to theory by andrew cooke on 5/23/03; 6:21:34 AM

Isaac Gouy - Re: Description Logics in Data Management  blueArrow
5/23/2003; 9:51:25 AM (reads: 577, responses: 1)
the latest version of which is implemented in C++, although they used to use Lisp (which just goes to show that)
Which just goes to show that they moved from Research to Production.

andrew cooke - Re: Description Logics in Data Management  blueArrow
5/23/2003; 10:10:02 AM (reads: 602, responses: 0)
pssst - it was a joke. see the news item below on the front page. i knew i shouldn't have. sorry. i'm just in a damn fine mood today! :o)

Isaac Gouy - Re: Description Logics in Data Management  blueArrow
5/23/2003; 11:46:14 AM (reads: 577, responses: 0)
Context matters. That was a joke too, just not a very good one ;-)

Ken Shan - Re: Description Logics in Data Management  blueArrow
5/24/2003; 10:30:23 AM (reads: 487, responses: 0)
There is an underappreciated connection between description logics and modal logics, namely that they are both logical languages for talking about graphs. Both kinds of languages describe graphs from a local perspective; in other words, a node is described in relation to other nodes it is connected to. Description and modal languages of varying expressive power and computational complexity are widely applicable because graph structures are so prevalent.