[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Terminology Shift: Ban Semantic Web
Your customer or user. The biggest mistake in schema or DTD design is to try to standardize. Sounds weird in this forum? Let me explain. Note: "you" is general, not specific to Richard herein. The network effect happens by consensus. There is no way to force enterprises to consent until they want to. It's like begging a girl to love you; force is of no possible value. Simple. When you design a schema, do not try to solve the problems of every conceivable user of the vocabulary: focus on the one who asked you to do it. Scope it to their precise requirements as best as you and they can define them. Spend a lot more time on defining these before you write a line of XML. If your customer includes a group organizing a value chain, scope accordingly. They have already agreed to cooperate so your job is to facilitate that. You don't want to be an evangelist; you want to be the facilitator. That said, if there are preexisting DTDs and schemas whose components match yours, use them with great care. Why? Appropriation, or vampiric acquisition. You [expletive deleted] the life out of languages by appropriating terms that are almost the same but not quite. The domain bleeds to death. If however, you can with great certainty determine that term is the one THEY mean, then use it consistently. Use the terms the customer understands and if the customer shares the terms with others, that is the business of the customer. If you want to create schemas the whole world will embrace, hail you as the new Andreesen, whatever, join OASIS or some other similarly large group whose business it is to negotiate worldViews with some other entity in that business, such as the United Nations. But scope to the business. This is not about standardizing terms. That is the side effect of standardizing processes and it is not a semantic web, it is a web of standard, discoverable, services. Know what's in your head. Know what your head is in. Len Bullard Intergraph Public Safety clbullar@i... http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti. Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h -----Original Message----- From: COLLINS,Richard [mailto:Richard_Collins@n...] Where do I go to discuss issues relating to the "S" word ? I want to use consistent vocabulary for my element names - where is the best forum for discussing the standardization (oops! another "S" word, sorry) of data elements ?
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