xml-dev - Re: Schemata are not just constraints [was: "RDF + Topic Maps" = TheFutu

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 09:21 AM 12/18/00 -0700, Uche Ogbuji wrote:
>Then again, it depends on what you need from "ontology".  If, as I
>think Martin Bryan suggests, you want a complete reasoning engine from
>first principles, then you'd better be channelling Choamsky and
>Wittgenstein and exorcising Deridda because you're gonna need a _lot_
>more firepower than constraints, address _or_ subject identity.

Heh.  Exorcising Derrida is a lot harder than it seems - too many computing
folks seem to forget (or deride) that.

I'd love to hear more folks taking the contingent nature of communications,
including XML communications, more seriously - as an accepted foundation,
not as a problem.  There's more going on than just nailed-down semantics
and well-understood content, and there always will be in any large-scale
project.  

Local understandings - as Walter Perry has made clear a number of times -
really do matter.  Maybe it's frightening to people who want something more
solid to hold on to, but solid often seems to equal brittle...

Fortunately, I think tools will evolve to reflect this more flexible world,
even the tools created with 'one true ontology' in mind.  Schematron's a
fine start!  

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books