[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Schemata are not just constraints [was: "RDF + Topic Maps" = TheFutu
> This is a point that I find worrying, since this move toward using > schemata for what they are (schemas) that can lead to locking > applications to specific schema technologies is happening while the > number of alternatives is increasing... I'm not so pessimistic about this. Most technologies I've seen lately that rely on schemata: RDF, SOAP, WSDL, ebXML, etc. have pluggable schema format. I personally am a big fan of constraint-based schemata, which is wht Schematron is my favorite XML validation technology. I think it represents the least hubris as to how well those of us without the eye of Phoibos can predict the future of our data. However, I do also sense that ontologies need more, which was the basis of the reservations with which I responded to Jonathan's message. Then again, it depends on what you need from "ontology". If, as I think Martin Bryan suggests, you want a complete reasoning engine from first principles, then you'd better be channelling Choamsky and Wittgenstein and exorcising Deridda because you're gonna need a _lot_ more firepower than constraints, address _or_ subject identity. What I mean by ontology, and I think Jonathan, is a tool that can perform reasoning in a closed system where the semantic "terminals", so to speak, have been fixed by reasoning humans. In this case, I think a case can be made that constraint mechanisms are sufficient, but I'm not convinced. -- Uche Ogbuji Principal Consultant uche.ogbuji@f... +1 303 583 9900 x 101 Fourthought, Inc. http://Fourthought.com 4735 East Walnut St, Ste. C, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA Software-engineering, knowledge-management, XML, CORBA, Linux, Python
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