RE: Modularity (was: Linkbases,Topic Maps,and RDF Knowledge Bases -- help me understand, please)

[Chris Angus <chris.angus@btinternet.com>]

Steve

Amen, particularly to "Upgrading everything at once is basically impossible"
and everything that follows.

Regards
Chris Angus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven R. Newcomb [mailto:srn@coolheads.com]
> Sent: 08 April 2001 03:17
> To: jenglish@flightlab.com
> Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Modularity (was: Linkbases, Topic Maps,and RDF Knowledge Bases
> -- help me understand, please)
>
>
> [Joe English:]
> > For example, in XLink <URL:
> > http://www.foo.com/doc.xml#bar > and <URL:
> > http://www.foo.com/doc.xml#xpointer(id('bar'))
> > mean the same thing, but in RDF they're different.
>
> Egad.
>
> I really wish that, on the Web and everywhere else,
> addressing (e.g., URIs) were entirely functionally
> distinct from the many applications of addressing
> (e.g. XLink and RDF).
>
> We lay painful and expensive traps for ourselves
> whenever we fail to take advantage of natural modular
> distinctions, like the distinction between addressing,
> on the one hand, and everything that uses addressing,
> on the other.
>
> Modularity liberates evolution.  Modules can be
> upgraded as needed, and, at any one time, there can be
> more than one module that performs essentially the same
> function.  Upgrading everything at once is basically
> impossible, so the failure to modularize leads to long
> periods of wasteful stagnation punctuated by
> unbelievably expensive and awkward revolutions, each of
> which is accompanied by all kinds of collateral damage,
> waste, uncertainty and fear.  Ugh.  It's high time for
> us to stop hurting ourselves this way.
>
> If you don't see the rapid and smooth evolution of
> efficient information management as a good and
> necessary thing, dear reader, please ask yourself
> whether you're really eager to delay progress in, say,
> medicine, for example, while you yourself are growing
> older.
>
> -Steve
>
> --
> Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant
> srn@coolheads.com
>
> voice: +1 972 359 8160
> fax:   +1 972 359 0270
>
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