[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Why Model Concepts? (Was RE: Object Role Modelling (ORM) or U ML or
Something more generic than syntax? Well, I guess we could offer up the SGML Declaration once again to the masses. Nah, then the XML inventors would have to be hanged too. RDF made the semantic web AI unless we want to use AI like Republicans in the States use the term "liberal", a demonization for conning the unwashed into electing them. Let's not. Tell me how to get rid of the communicative a priori, the bootstrap, then, I can agree with the rest of what you are saying. We can route information without knowing it's meaning. That is easy. We just can't use it safely. My guess is, practicality is in the direction of common means for choosing meanings. Generic tools are common means. Choose a notation and you chose a model too (IDEF(relational) vs UML(objects)). Should we include groves here too? *Hiding* information under a stack of abstract names is still just a means. We can agree on UML just like a good sized chunk of the CSHeads once agreed on IDEF, others on Express. But until we agree, all bets are off above syntax parsing (and for that, we had to agree on an SGML Declaration). So once again, why do we need conceptual models (we don't always need them but when we do....)? To me, this is an abstract layer, so I agree with you, Rick, but I really don't think the semantic web does much until some model for this gets buy-in. AI is irrelevant except insofar as we can identify and learn from the experience of the systems builders who used that name to label their products. Len http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti. Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h -----Original Message----- From: Rick Jelliffe [mailto:ricko@a...] From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) <clbullar@i...> >IMO, we need it to make notions like the semantic >web work reliably. Long before the machines process machine >processable descriptions, humans have to agree >on what those descriptions mean. I wonder. Perhaps (as well?) we need to go the other way: concentrating on information hiding--figuring out how to notate data so that it can be manipulated by as generic tools as possible. Perhaps we need to be reducing the need for human agreement on meanings as much as possible. To be able to route information without knowing its meaning; to be able to build structural dependencies into schemas so that users can take document types for granted (and not need know why a stuctural constraint is--unless they want to) Without the widespread availability of generic tools, it is too difficult to have specific data; and generic tools=layered standards for most intents and purposes. If the semantic web was AI, then human-machine descriptions would be king; I suspect the semantic web will emerge out of pragmatic and incremental development--raising the bar for generic manipulation of generic structures each time.
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