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Re: A Systematic Approach to using Simple XML Vocabularies to

• To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Subject: Re: A Systematic Approach to using Simple XML Vocabularies to Implement Large (Complex) Systems
• From: Frank Manola <fmanola@a...>
• Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:12:02 -0500
• Cc: "'Roger L. Costello'" <costello@m...>, "'xml-dev@l...'" <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE07206A33@h...>
• References: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE07206A33@h...>
• User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913)

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> And RDF reinvents how many existing and perfectly 
> serviceable languages?  How much technology did 
> XML reinvent?
> 
> Let Roger noodle.  People and communities learn from that.
> The questions are more important than this year's answers.
> 
> len

I've no built-in objection to reinvention (or to noodling either :-) ), 
but (to repeat somewhat) I think the reinvention (if that's what it is) 
would be more productive if (a) it were clearer whether what needed 
inventing was model or syntax (or a combination), and (b) it could build 
more on prior work (again, either on models, e.g. ER models, or on 
syntax).  One reason to point to prior work is to focus attention on 
what is *unsatisfactory* about that work, and hence on where the bulk of 
the new work needs to be done.  People learn from that too (it's the way 
science is supposed to work, after all;  and engineering too).

--Frank

PS:  Specifically regarding RDF, it reinvents and/or borrows from quite 
a few languages/approaches (and the specs cite many of them);  starting 
off with logic, which is thousands of years old (depending on who you 
listen to)

> 
> 
> From: Frank Manola [mailto:fmanola@a...]
> 
> Roger--
> 
> To echo a previous comment, it seems to me you're largely (if not 
> entirely:  I haven't been following this that closely) reinventing RDF, 
> with somewhat different syntax.  It might help to clarify things to look 
> at whether RDF's *model* (basically, things having identity, plus 
> properties describing those things) does what you want, and it's the RDF 
> *syntax* that's the problem, or whether there is something more 
> fundamental going on.
> 

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• References:
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    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>

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