[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Sauterne was: Re: XML/RDF
Anyone who thought about the claims that XML would revolutionize search engines for more than 10 minutes would have realized how unjustified those claims were. The MetaCrap[0] essay is an excellent summary of the exactly why such thinking was folly. If there is anything to learn from that undelivered promise it isn't your points (1) and (2) below but that technological solutions that depend significantly on [excessive] human intervention to create automated processes are doomed to failure. One end of the spectrum is the package tracking system used by UPS[1] which although significantly dependent on human intervention to work (packages must be scanned at every stop) do not alter the shipping process significantly since package handlers merely have to scan the boxes they are moving. The other end of the spectrum are things like RDF and the "semantic search engine markup" which require significantly altering application processes[2] while needing agreement from dozens of distinct entities even after making these alterations. [0] http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm [1] http://www.ups.com/tracking/tracking.html [2] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/30/rdf-friendly.html -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jonathan@o...] Sent: Sun 11/10/2002 8:43 PM To: xml-dev@l... Cc: Mike Champion Subject: Sauterne was: Re: XML/RDF Mike Champion wrote: [[ There's some Semantic Web stuff I find very intriguing, e.g. applying WebOnt to SNOMED, or the Canegie-Mellon stuff on scheduling (http://www.sys-con.com/xml/article.cfm?id=529). Then again, they're applying RDF to well-understood, localized domains. Sortof like SOAP-RPC -- a reasonable solution to a limited domain problems, but my hackles go up go up when people start talking about it as the Next Big Thing. I guess it really *is* the hype that bothers me ... and there's something about hype that just gets under my skin and makes me want to debunk it rather than doing something more productive with my time ... ]] Yeah well I remember when XML first came out and it was promised to revolutionize search engines by allowing web pages to be classified according to 'semantic markup' ... never happened. Two lessions: 1) if a technology delivers 10% of what is hyped, that is generally a great thing. 2) some of us are still working on that initial promise, and progress is being made, albeit slowly http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-guide/ I'd like to think that the Semantic Web is what SGML on the Web was always supposed to be ... now unfortunately at this early stage it's terribly (almost not at all) integrated with XML in general but that's a different issue... Jonathan http://www.jonathanborden-md.com http://www.erieneurosurgery.com http://www.openhealth.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl>
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