RE: [xml-dev] Symbol Grounding and Running Code: Is XML Really Extensible?

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@mercury.ccil.org] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 3:34 PM
> To: Dare Obasanjo
> Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Symbol Grounding and Running Code: Is 
> XML Really Extensible?
> 
> Dare Obasanjo scripsit:
> 
> > Agreed. XML is about syntax and nothing else. People who think 
> > otherwise have been misled by the XML hype of yesteryear.
> 
> Every word that Tim Bray says about markup at 
> http://tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/08/11/SymbolGrounding 
> applies with exactly equal force to ordinary human-readable 
> natural language text.

Yes, and we have ways of teaching humans what natural language text
means. Do we have ways of teaching machines what natural language text
means let alone markup tags. Like I said in
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/8/122029/2205. To claim that one
can do this means one has a technique where 

1.) I can take a vanilla XSLT processor and pass it a stylesheet with
EXSLT extension elements which my XSLT processor automatically learns
how to process as valid stylesheet instructions. 

AND

2.) I can take a vanilla W3C XML Schema processor and pass it a schema
with embedded Schematron assertions which it automatically learns how to
use to validate an input document in addition to using the W3C XML
Schema rules. 

since these are both "simple" cases of mixing XML vocabularies with
agreed upon semantics. 

As far as I'm concerned this is an unfeasible problem to attempt to
solve and claiming otherwise is as ludicrous as the claims many were
making about AI in the 80s and about the Semantic Web in the 90s. 


-- 
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM 
Eat right, Exercise, Die anyway.


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.