xml-dev - RE: interoperability (was Re: Obfuscating XML with namespaces)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Title: RE: interoperability (was Re: Obfuscating XML with namespaces)

Precisely.  At the other side of the universe is the back of my head.

The problem of semantics is find a means to see the other side

of another universe and know that it is someone else's bald spot

before I sue the barber or buy a toupee.

 

XML gives us:

 

o  Lexical unification.  One ring (parser) to rule them all.  A systems

bridge, really.

 

o  Validation on requirement - a standard means to establish

in advance of a transaction that the names, structure, and a

limited amount of range and datatype information is required

for that transaction to complete and then to exercise that

means optionally or by policy.

 

The begattings give us most of the rest of what gets debated

here.

 

Experience informs me that the universes of information are

too diverse and too tightly coupled to the dynamics of

feedback between environment and entity to enable a

semantic web to operate seamlessly.   It can work for

some ecologies.  We don't yet know what the limits

of growth of these are to sustain coherent

operations.   Intuition tells me that there will be a lot 

of knashing when the lower level business objects are used 

as services to high-level business process/control models 

such as can be created with XLang.   We have to know

how well this scales and how well it reinforces.  Part of

this will be simple design skill and the limits of the

design resources until we have provably good macro

structures to work with and instrumented tests.

 

What we have with XML is sufficient

agreement about a basic bridging technology to

enable us to test the hypotheses about this against

real world information and processes.

 

Caveat emptor.    No certainty.  The Semantic Web

remains a theory until we put it to the test.

 

Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
clbullar@ingr.com
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h

From: Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com [mailto:Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com]

Now that XML has made syntax so much easier, a lot of people are very eager to tackle the semantics problem. But let's not blame XML for the fact that semantics are hard!

Jonathan