The Roadkilll of Ximplifications (Was RE: ZDNet Schema article,a nd hiding complexity within user-friendlyproducts)

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

Ok, but some curmudgeonly thoughts ...  

Keiretsu requires locally stable vocabularies, 
but only that of necessity.  XML Schemas work 
fine at the level of exchanging data objects.  
What do you need to exchange and can you afford 
interop?

Do businesses need the SemanticWeb?  Do we?

Standards don't always incubate; sometimes they block.  
In other cases, without a core data standard, 
there is no market not because the data is complex, 
but the business rules are and they vary by locale 
and contract.  No one can afford to build the app 
unless they can customize it and sell it to different 
customers in the same market for dollar costs that 
exceed what the perceptions for web-based apps sustain. 

Complexity isn't the enemy; the perception of cost 
and its impact on market is.  When the Dogs of Marketing 
sell a customer on the WebAppsAreCheaper bit, the 
DevelopmentSlaves groan at their oars.  It ain't so.

I would hope XSD and RDF work together at least as 
far as intertransformability confers identity or similarity. 
As for the semantic web, I reserve some doubts.  Grand visions 
are good for rallying effort, creating orgs to direct, etc... 

But:

o  MSXML 4.0 is on the street with XSD support.  XSD wins 
   the first round of practical ubiquitous support.

o  XML Schemas are already backed up with practice in XDR, 
   publicly available documents explaining best practices, etc. 
   Books are already in the hoppers if not on the shelves.

o  XSLT is a heckuva harder to apply than XML Schemas and 
   so far, people are figuring it out.

o  Feedback from serious minds on the notion of the semantic 
   web suggests the infrastructure won't be there for ten years, maybe 20. 
   We'd have to debate infrastructure but if that is a given, by 
   the time that passes, the situation with the semantic 
   web will be as it was for SGML and XML:  when the requirements 
   and the technology converge, it is time for new faces, new 
   names, freshly scrubbed ideas, and so forth.  So it might 
   happen but not for the current inventors/investors. 

o  Metadata may be more expensive to create and maintain than 
   content.  Hired a semiologist or ontologist lately?

o  Content has to last long enough to recoup costs and profit. 
   This means a lifecycle that includes maintenance and 
   upgrade. Sustainment:  we have to be able to afford to own 
   content.  That is why the kudzu of HTML will never go away.

o  Vocabularies imposed from above are not as stable as 
   those emergent from contract requirements.  Money talks 
   but better than that, it schedules.  Companies don't 
   join the United Nations.  They sell systems to other 
   companies.  Sometimes, they sell them to the UN members,
   but that market isn't as big as it used to be.   The local 
   surfer doesn't buy SWs: he subscribes to services.  What 
   will be the cost of maintaining semantically-aligned services 
   and who will pay it?  So far, the ISPs, the telcos, etc. and 
   they have to pass that on to the customer who benefits by having 
   a cell phone that can tell a microwave to ask the refrigerator 
   about the best temperature to cook a pizza?

So the basic semantic web application is a well-done pizza?
Huh?  They used to be $10 and were delivered hot in thirty 
minutes or less.  Now because a cellphone doesn't have the 
power to validate a form entry and I can't hit the chiclets, 
I get pizza that's soggy and the refrigerator won't take it back 
or even give me a frikkin' coupon!!  And for this, all of the 
best minds in computer science slaved to build the SW!!!!!  Some deal...

;-)

Don't Bogart the future.  What may appear to be one system lasts  
as long as it takes the weather to change the temperature 
of the road surface.  Then the illusion fades in the rear 
view mirror among the road kill of never-ending Ximplifications.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Presti [mailto:apresti@bellsouth.net]



I remember those G3 and G4 spec issues when attempting imagery integration
for
Xray film....

And you are correct, Len - the issue IS XML approach with RDF schema.  XML
and
associated schemata approaches can only work within limited domain
constructs
for semantic applications.  The addition of RDF schemata to XML apps seems
to
hold much more promise for reduction of computational intensity in
large-scale
or (dare I say it?) unbounded semantic web knowledge assembly.