Re: [xml-dev] 'is-a' Relationships in XML?

[David <dlee@calldei.com>]

Just a side diversion ... apologize for the slightly off-topic but I had 
to bring it up ....
With all this talk about "semantics" and "the real world" and getting 
"meaning" from markup etc ...
Where does it all stop ?  Have ANY technology ever achieved encoding 
true meaning ?
I dont think so.  I dont think any humans languages have either.
Its a worthwhile goal, and I think one of the oldest philosophical goals 
but I dont think we can ever get there.
At some point "enough is enough".   Enough meaning for the application.
In "your app"   parent/child relationships in "your xml" may be close 
enough to "contains" to work.
What does it "mean" ...

Well to quote the famous philosopher "Mr. Natural"
when asked  (concerning the meaning of live, war, happiness etc ..)
"But ... What does it all mean !!!??"
Answer:  "Don't mean sheet".


I seriously think that applies here.   At some point the meaning is 
"good enough" in context ...
and there is ALWAYS context.

So when I have my Employeer/Employee database in XML ... am I going to 
try to use RDF and SPARQL to attempt to model "meaning" in it ?
Not a chance.  Its "good enough" to "know" that <employeer> "has a" 
<employee>  without trying to encode that *anywhere*.



-------------------------

David A. Lee
dlee@calldei.com
http://www.calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org


On 5/6/2010 9:36 AM, Stephen Green wrote:
> OK. Apologies for relying on potentially ambiguous terms here.
>
> To be more precise, I hope, I'd say there are going to be classes
> and properties defined about the 'real world' things to which the
> markup relates or which it represents in some way. These might
> typically be defined using some specialised technology like some
> of the RDF or OWL syntaxes. Then some related query language
> would be used along with a reasoner (and/or inference engine
> perhaps) to query this information. I've called the information
> 'semantic' and the query technology for it a 'semantic query'. It
> could be SPARQL or the like. The first step might be to run such
> queries to obtain perhaps XPaths from the stored information. A
> second step might be to use these XPaths to interrogate the XML
> itself. Putting the two steps together might be a function of the
> query engine which might first have to be able to query say a 'triple
> store' of RDF instances or the OWL equivalent (or whatever technology
> is used to store information relating the markup to its subject domain).
> I'd really suggest the same query engine might be extended (e.g
> with Saxon...) to run the XPath against relevant markup. I don't
> see how the XML would be identified but it might be held in a database
> and configuration details stored in the information query engine or passed
> with the query as parameters perhaps.
>
> Best regards
>
> Steve
> ---
> Stephen D Green
>
>
>
>
> On 6 May 2010 13:59, Michael Kay<mike@saxonica.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I have absolutely no idea what you mean by terms such as "semantic queries"
>> or "semantic query languages". I do wish we could stop using these terms.
>> You put some bits in at one end and you get some different bits out at the
>> other; the transformation of one set of bits to the other is purely
>> mechanical, and they don't mean anything unless human beings choose to
>> attach meaning to them. That's the way computers work.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Michael Kay
>> http://www.saxonica.com/
>> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
>>
>>
>>
>>      
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Stephen Green [mailto:stephengreenubl@gmail.com]
>>> Sent: 06 May 2010 13:28
>>> To: xml-dev
>>> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] 'is-a' Relationships in XML?
>>>
>>> I'd propose some best practice principles then
>>>
>>> 1. semantic queries regarding XML should ideally be written
>>> in a semantic query language
>>>
>>> 2. semantic queries using XPath should be considered second best
>>>
>>> 3. semantic conformance rules / criteria should be tested
>>> using semantic assertions (just as we can test structural
>>> criteria using XPath assertions such as Schematron, XSD 1.1,
>>> test assertion markup with XPathsm and other associations
>>> between rules and XPaths, etc)
>>>
>>> 4. semantics can be defined for a markup using semantic /
>>> ontology languages
>>>
>>> 5. semantic expressions can be evaluated over the markup
>>> using semantic queries but for this, maybe further work is
>>> needed to establish how to associate XPaths with the semantic
>>> definitions
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>>
>>> Stephen D Green
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>>>> Apologies for harping back on the
>>>>   former thread.
>>>>
>>>> Given then that I need to define the
>>>> semantics of a markup outside of that
>>>> markup and outside of a schema,
>>>> perhaps using RDF or the like, I'd probably want to associate many
>>>> classes and properties or expressions with XPaths in my markup.
>>>> If I used RDF, it seems to like URIs or URLs or the like
>>>>          
>>> (there seem
>>>        
>>>> to be many such identifier standards of late). Would there be a
>>>> standard way to add something like an XPath to perhaps the
>>>>          
>>> end of such
>>>        
>>>> a URL, so I can point a semantic expression like class or
>>>>          
>>> property to
>>>        
>>>> a node in the markup?
>>>> XQuery? It would be nice to have a semantic query like
>>>>          
>>> SPARQL be able
>>>        
>>>> to resolve
>>>>   it.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Stephen D Green
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>> _________
>>>
>>> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by
>>> OASIS to support XML implementation and development. To
>>> minimize spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>>>
>>> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
>>> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
>>> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org List archive:
>>> http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
>>> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>>>
>>>        
>>
>>      
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org
> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>