Re: Picking the Tools

[Joel Rees <rees@server.mediafusion.co.jp>]

Iwaku Jonathan Borden


> Uche,
>
> I suspect that you have successfully be flame baited! The suggestion that
> something could actually be _more_ abstract than the combination of RDF,
TM
> and XML Schema ... :-))

Watching one of these from the sidelines can be very educational.

>
> Jonathan (appreciating the chuckle very much)
>
>
>
> > > If one models at the level of UML, one should be able
> > > to create both RDF and Topic Map instances of the UML
> > > models.  Yes or no?

This implies that RDF and Topic Map bear a superset relationship to UML.

> > > Given that we have XML Schemas, Topic Maps, RDF, and
> > > so forth, isn't it prudent to work with an abstract
> > > modeling technology such as UML over any of the above?

This would then imply that the superset relationship is not proper, after
having snuck XML Schema into the group with RDF and Topic Map. Rather
confusion logic, I'd say.

[clipped]

> > One of the reasons I work so much with XML and RDF is that they are
*more*
> > abstract than OO, and allow OO modeling as well as other forms, all of
> > which, on aggregate, are far more expressive than OO.
> >
> > Therefore I personally would be the last person to prefer UML models to
> > RDF or Topic maps except for the design of code modules.

And I was very glad to see this assertion. I have long been under the
oppresion of object-mongers, even though I have doubted all along that
(programmable, ergo, tangible) objects were the be-all and end-all of
existence.

Sure, it is all matter, but that does not mean it is all objects that we can
get our hands or minds around.

[clipped]

Joel Rees
joel_rees@sannet.ne.jp