[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
grimlinda@earthlink.net (Linda Grimaldi) writes:
>Levels of communication make the world go 'round- XML is one level,
>ontologies another. Where you don't need semantic consensus, don't
>bother. Where you need the agreement (and can get it) do so, and allow
>some flexibility to accommodate levels of variance and evolution.
>This is the advantage of RDF over CORBA and other strict object
>models- just because I use the word "class" and borrow some useful
>constructs now and again does not necessarily make me an object
>zealot. I'm just acknowledging that the concepts do come in handy for
>a certain class (no pun intended :>)) of problems.
Except that I get fed up with ontologists who keep coming round and
asking why we bother with this mere syntactical stuff, and explaining it
gets more than a little irksome. Maybe they're just trolls, maybe they
genuinely believe that syntax isn't interesting, but damn they're
annoying.
When I most need agreement, I can't get it, and I certainly can't get it
usefully documented. When I don't need agreement, it comes pretty
easily. Workarounds are the best part of XML, as the syntax keeps them
possible.
>We have the benefit of many available tools, built around the same
>syntactic structure. Use the ones that do you good and throw out the
>rest- until the next problem, when you just might need them.
I throw out most of them, all of the time. Works fine for me.
--
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org
|
