[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Beyond Ontologies

• To: "'Bullard, Claude L \(Len\)'" <clbullar@i...>
• Subject: RE: Beyond Ontologies
• From: "bryan" <bry@i...>
• Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 17:03:16 +0200
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE03F9ED07@h...>

>To determine if the web is a complex system, 
>read the draft of the W3C web architecture. 
>If the description there is clear to you, 
>it isn't.

Complex systems are generally built up of simple components, I can't
remember where I read this anecdote, it was probably from James Gleick's
Chaos, early 90's I think, that a lot of physicists when they first saw
the meteorological data thought "I can solve that" but it turned out
that they couldn't. Think of it as being handed a Bayesian Network
written in Java, obsessively object oriented, with spaghetti code all
the way through. Looking at any segment of code might cause one to
think, I can do better than this, but in the end it turns out the
solution is to rewrite in LISP. 

(heh heh, just a joke)

So given the traditional simple building blocks of true complexity
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/complexity.html
You maybe should have said: If the description there isn't clear to you,
it won't turn out to be a complex system.  

>If you consider a hypermedia link 
>a function call, then your vision is 
>coherent. 
A madman's vision is often coherent :)

> Unfortunately, it is 
>too limited for the purpose of getting 
>a research grant.

Darn. I was hoping to win an Ig Nobel.

>For the cultural Rummy example, 
>what is coupled to the site where the term 
>originated that enabled it to propagate 
>quickly? 

Actually I was against Rummy as an example of complexity. 

• References:
  • RE: Beyond Ontologies
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

• Prev by Date: ISO repents
• Next by Date: Re: Beyond Ontologies
• Previous by thread: RE: Beyond Ontologies
• Next by thread: RE: Beyond Ontologies
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread