[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML, hypertext
Hi Len, Even if this look navel discussion, in the context of what's happening with XML and the level of dissatisfaction we feel with the current direction. Maybe this kind of discussion may help us go back to the basics and what is good about the Web. Simply that: the web, the capacity to link things. This is why the linkage issue is so important. Especially in this decade in which we will have to link multimedia stuff with textual information (at least when broadband will take off - Anyway, Asia and the competitive pressure will help us to move toward that goal) Didier said: >Perhaps a link is at its more abstract level simply indicates a >relationship and when mapped to an element, Len replied: It can, but a link like that is a named set of properties. Didier replies: As in the Grove model. A grove entity is a property set. So in the abstract, a rendering object is a grove entity as well as is a semantic element such as a bank account. Both have a property set attached to them. Said like that, a link a simply a linkage between two property sets. Sounds like the basic goal of the semantic web. What is missing though, is to bring to explicit knowledge the property set of these entities. Schema language or DTDs can do that for marked documents but for a video or a song we have no ways to explicitly state the internal structure either encapsulated or not with any agent. Or the question is: Is a schema sufficient to define these property set and the relationship they have? At least a good question to pose and probably a good thesis theme. What is good about a model based on objects and property set is that we do not have to use a finite set of types (like boolean, numbers, etc...). The objects are defined by the property set. In some ways a property set tells more about the object than a simple axiom like saying this is a number. Saying that this is a number says very little about the nature of the number but making explicit its properties can say a lot more about it. This is a phenomenological approach (oops sorry for philosophy allergic fellows) since we discover the object through its facets. And we process or manipulate this object with a certain intention, this implies that some properties may be more important than other dependent on the context. This said, I think that W3C (and its not the fault of its founder or its member), by nature and diverse communities of minds it represent, is a strong candidate for schizophrenic behavior. On the one hand, it publicize the semantic web model based on objects and property sets and on the other hand do not use this rich model for its own purpose and model definition. For instance, having an SVG object model presented as property sets and relationship between these objects. We have a text document encapsulating the knowledge but no formal document consumable by a processor. I think that some of us in the XML community made already the inference that a type could be described by an RDF description. I personally would try this path in Didier's labs to see if this is useful even if my first try is criticized. But hey, we learn by taking risks. So, in conclusion, I think that what the Grove model gave us is that a type or an object can be described by a property set and that property set can be linked together. See, a single sentence that could express something as the semantic web as well as other views of the web. I wont' play whitehead (or maybe try to do :0 ) but will try an info set definition: A document is the basic unit of the web. In the abstract, a document can be envisioned as a collection of objects and each object more particularly defined by a property set (i.e. a collection of properties). Thus, a particular object instance can be thought as a property set associated with specific values. A link is a reference to another object instance either in the same document or in one or more external documents. Issues: - Can Xpointer satisfy such reference to objects' instance linkage? (especially in the case of linking movie or song fragments) - Can RDF be a good language to define the property sets and in some ways be a remake of grove plans since it is fashion to redo stuff every decade. - Can we go over strict types and be able to consider stuff like circles, bank account, numbers etc.. as types. Said differently can we, as a community, go beyond the simple types expressed in procedural languages and relational databases? - Can the cobbler be well equipped with shoes and start walking the talk by recommending to start the semantic web with its own stuff? You know who the cobbler is don't' you? - other issues I do not think for the moment but that my dear fellows have in their minds. Sorry for the navel discussion :0 Cheers Didier PH Martin
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