From: pat hayes (phayes@ai.uwf.edu)
Date: 08/28/01
> > 1. What reason can there be to forbid subclass loops, other than > > subClassOf being understood to mean proper subclass? > >Several possibilities: > >1) Tools that traverse inheritance hierarchies have to >explicitly handle cycles rather than just recurse. This >could break current RDFS tools. > >2) Subclass loops often indicate a design error or a >partially applied change. > >3) Java and C++ programmers don't expect subclass cycles. > > > So, what justification can there be for asserting that > > rdfs:subClassOf does *not* mean proper subclass? > >Richard and I had the same question (a good sign for me): >Does "proper subclass" imply the (possible) existance of >some instance that is a member of the class but not of the >subclass? Yes. The actual existence, in fact. Mind you, that instance might not have anything referring to it. Pat --------------------------------------------------------------------- (650)859 6569 w (650)494 3973 h (until September) phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
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