Re: a concern on SW technologies: document content

Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
> Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote on 12/08/2006 06:15:31 PM:
>
>   
>> Paul Walsh, Segala wrote:
>>     
>>> Lee,
>>>
>>> I wouldn't like to focus any time (at this point) on things that we 
>>>       
> don't
>   
>>> know about. 
>>>
>>> I think you're concerns are well placed, but not for this group to 
>>>       
> address
>   
>>> at this time IMHO. I propose we pick the low hanging fruit by 
>>>       
> demonstrating
>   
>>> the real benefits with implementations that are out there today. Then 
>>>       
> we can
>   
>>> focus on implementations in progress... 
>>>
>>> ***Enough research!!*** More outreach!! ;)
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>       
>> Paul,
>>
>> Wouldn't categorize this question as "High Hanging" fruit :-)
>>     
>
> I hope not! 
>
>   
>> What I think we could do with these kinds of questions is place them in 
>> a "Presumed" or  "Assumed" Challenges Wiki document.
>>     
>
> I agree with this; I don't know if our survey process will uncover anymore 
> concerns along these particular lines, but since one thing we're doing is 
> soliciting existing concerns about SW technologies, I felt that my 
> coworker's thoughts were valuable.
>
> [more below]
>
>   
>>> Hi SWEOids,
>>>
>>> Wing and I had an interesting and somewhat enlightening conversation 
>>>       
> with 
>   
>>> another IBMer today. Our colleague was somewhat familiar with the SW 
>>>       
> world 
>   
>>> and is very familiar with the XML world, and he expressed concerns 
>>>       
> that SW 
>   
>>> technologies (and RDF / SPARQL in particular) may fall short in one 
>>> prominent area in which XML / XQuery shines: dealing with 
>>>       
> content-oriented 
>   
>>> (often mixed content) documents. He was concerned about this given 
>>>       
> some of 
>   
>>> our claims about the value of RDF/SW technologies as a unifying 
>>> environment for data and metadata.
>>>
>>> He gave various examples ranging from insurance policies to resumes to 
>>>       
>
>   
>>> rentral agreements, with the basic idea being that XQuery can easily 
>>> answer questions that involve searching within a document (or, 
>>>       
> more-so, 
>   
>>> searching for text in a particular paragraph of a document, perhaps 
>>>       
> with 
>   
>>> emphasis added) which uses XML markup. He wondered aloud and we 
>>>       
> discussed 
>   
>>> what the SW approach to this would be, and we agreed that it's lacking 
>>>       
>
>   
>>> right now. He expressed worry that whereas XML can wrap data that 
>>>       
> might be 
>   
>>> best expressed as relational or RDF data (and then join that data in 
>>> XQuery queries with document data), the RDF world may not have as nice 
>>>       
> a 
>   
>>> story.
>>>
>>> I (personally) need to think the issues here through a bit more, but 
>>>       
> to me 
>   
>>> it was not an objection that I've heard commonly, but it was an 
>>> interesting one to which I had no immediate response, so I wanted to 
>>>       
> throw 
>   
>>> it out here and solicit thoughts and/or feedback. (I don't think it's 
>>> imperative that we have an immediate or bulletproof response to every 
>>> potential SW objection, but thinking about where the technologies fall 
>>>       
>
>   
>>> short in addition to where they excel should help us craft our 
>>>       
> messaging.)
>   
>>> have a good weekend everyone,
>>> Lee
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> The question posed by the XQuery / XML enthusiast (and obvious RDF 
>> skeptic) makes too many assumptions about how, and where, RDF is 
>>     
>
> Actually, I would characterize this colleague as a definite RDF supporter, 
> especially for someone so highly involved in the XML world. I think it's 
> important that the SW community not think that every person who expresses 
> concerns about the success of the Semantic Web is a skeptic ("bad guy" 
> :-).
>
>   
I didn't imply "bad guy", at least that wasn't my intent.  A skeptic 
isn't a bad person otherwise I would have said: that bad XML person :-)

 From my vantage point the more questions re. perceived problem 
scenarios the better.

>> managed. For instance, Virtuoso [1], Oracle, DB2, MS SQL Server, and a 
>>     
>
> Kingsley, perhaps I'm just grouchy after a long week at work, but I don't 
> feel this is the proper forum to advertise your company's products. At the 
> least, you could surely include similar footnotes for Oracle, DB2, and SQL 
> Server! :-)
>
>   
I think you're kinda being grouchy here :-)

This forum is about knowledge exchange (I hope).  If I knew that Oracle, 
DB2, MS SQL Server had RDF, XML, SQL and SPARQL access available I would 
splatter my response with such links. I am not one for deliberate 
omission, I simply don't play that game.  If you or anyone else one the 
list knows where those missing links are why not simply add them (now or 
whenever that are available)?  I don't think this is a forum where 
knowledge is contributed on the basis of "all or nothing".

Now imagine if I simply didn't comment on the basis of this being 
perceived as a product promo? Where would that get us? I have no 
additional anecdotal reference material re. XQuery and RDF handled in 
such a manner that they aren't inadvertently perceived as competing 
technologies (i.e in one server). If you split  RDF/XML and the RDF 
Model, then XQuery versus RDF Model becomes an Apples and Orange style 
conversation. If on the other hand, as part of a solution, they have to 
be together (RDF for Context and Meaning and XML for Structure) then I 
have no knowledge of alternatives to Virtuoso. Of course, if 
alternatives exist (which is natural possibility for sure) then having 
someone contribute this piece of missing information to the discourse is 
highly beneficial (IMHO).

>> few other RDBMS engines all have the ability to store XML in a myriad of 
>>     
>
>   
>> ways (internally). The only challenge is to what degree (if any) said 
>> engines offer RDF & XML Data Management alongside SQL and/or Object 
>> managment.   If we take a multi-model (Hybrid) DBMS  like Virtuoso [2] 
>> [3] for example, there is nothing stopping the use of SPARQL for Graph 
>> Traversal and then XQuery for post-processing the SPARQL query results 
>> within the same DBMS server process.
>>     
>
>   
>> As per usual with RDF Data Model matters, we start off with "Mutual 
>> Exclusivity" and  end up with  "Mutually Inclusive" since RDF and XQuery 
>>     
>
>   
>> work well together albeit somewhat dependent on architecture your RDF 
>> Data Management solution.
>>     
>
> Yup, I agree with these general approaches, and my colleague and I 
> discussed them. The discussion actually started surrounding whether or not 
> there is a distinction between data and metadata, and from there went off 
> to discuss how XQuery is able to (all-in-one) handle queries across 
> documents and more structured data as in my original note. 
>   
XQuery is a query language and RDF is part Model and various 
serialization formats. Ultimately, if we drill down, we still end up 
dealing with the perception that XQuery and RDF must be handled by 
separate dedicated data servers (typically XML Data Servers(, which 
eventually brings us to the very mutually exclusivity perception I am 
seeking to  refute.
> I want to be clear that I don't think this is any sort of failing of the 
> SW technologies or even of the SW messaging. I thought it was an 
> interesting viewpoint that I wasn't familiar with, and I think it's good 
> for the SW community to be familiar with various concerns--especially 
> those of our friends!
>  
>   
>> To conclude, we should start collating "Where Does RDF Fit in Here?" 
>> type questions in a commonly accessible public Wiki that enables broad 
>> contribution of  solutions pointers and insights etc. We can then use 
>> this Wiki document as the data source for producing something that's 
>> similar to your nice SPARQL FAQ [4]
>>     
>
> I agree with this also. I'll try to get some of these thoughts summarized 
> onto the wiki sometime next week.
>   

BTW - Here are some other links that illustrate the many architectural 
routes to RDF Instance Data Generation for an RDF Bus (from TimBL 
presentation) [1]:

1. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(1)
2. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(23)
3. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(24)
4. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(25)
5. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(26)
6. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(27) (note: XQuery in this one)
7. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(28)
8. http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0314-ox-tbl/#(29) (note: Smart Servers 
in this one)



Kingsley
> Lee
>
>   
>> Links:
>>
>> 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server
>> 2. http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/architect/vconcept.htm (Conceptual 
>> Architecture Diagram)
>> 3. http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/architect/vtechnical.htm (Technical 
>> Architecture Diagram)
>> 4. http://thefigtrees.net/lee/sw/sparql-faq
>>
>> -- 
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kingsley Idehen         Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
>> President & CEO 
>> OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>   


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Saturday, 9 December 2006 02:01:07 UTC