an argument in support of RDF instead of property graphs

Published 2020-12-12T16:12:00.001Z by Physics Derivation Graph

I've wrestled with whether to use Property Graphs to store and query the Physics Derivation Graph. I see potential value, but the licensing of Neo4j keeps me from committing. I'm aware of other implementations, but I don't have confidence about either their stability or durability.

This post makes a convincing argument about both the short-comings of a property-graph-based knowledge graph and the value of an RDF-based storage method. To summarize,

• don't be distracted by visualization capabilities; inference is more important
• property graph IDs are local, whereas identifiers in RDF are global. 
• Global IDs are vital for enabling federation, merge, diff

I know OWL (Web Ontology Language) is popular for knowledge representation, and this post was the first to provide a clear breakdown of the difference between property graphs, RDF, and OWL. OWL supports

• the ability infer that a node that is a member of a class is also a member of any of its superclasses
• properties can have superproperties