Re: Pragmatic Problems in the RDF Ecosystem (Was: Re: Toward easier RDF: a proposal)

Hi Martynas & All,

Slides 9-23 of http://www.executable-english.com/Semantic_Technology_Presentation.pdf
may hopefully be useful for this discussion.

                                               -- Adrian

Adrian Walker
Executable English LLC
San Jose, CA, USA
860 830 2085
www.executable-english.com




On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 7:04 AM Martynas Jusevičius <martynas@atomgraph.com>
wrote:

> Steven,
>
> good to get an "outsider's" POV. And you definitely stepped on some toes
> here :D
>
> I don't want to go into detail, only address one issue re. tutorials
> and documentation. It's the idea I had about a year ago, now I
> remembered it and I think it is relevant to this thread:
> "Data-centric, cross-specification semantic primer"
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2017Oct/0040.html
>
> Would that address some of your concerns re. RDF specifications?
>
> And of course we would need to SEO the **** out of such document,
> using RDFa and schema.org and whatever is needed, to get it to the top
> of the search results.
>
> Martynas
> atomgraph.com
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 2:32 PM Steven Harms <sgharms@stevengharms.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > All,
> >
> > I've posted this online at my site for long-form reading (
> https://stevengharms.com/research/semweb-topic/2018-11-26-toward-easier-rdf/#post)
> but will include the full, long text below for those preferring the mail
> reader interface.
> >
> > Esteemed SW Community,
> >
> > I've been silent on this list because I am not a practising ontologist.
> I'm
> > (just a) "middle 33% developer" who thought that making a graph of
> knowledge
> > about books would be interesting[0]. I've tried to document[1] my
> experiences,
> > up to the point a few weeks ago that I ground to a halt. When I saw
> David's
> > post[2], I was excited because I thought it might occasion discussion
> around
> > the simple, pragmatic problems that stymied me.
> >
> > I'd like to list a few signals that RDF* sends in the first hour of
> exploration
> > to the pragmatic 33%-er (me)  that suggest that the explorer's further
> time
> > won't pay off. I've also spent 2 hours with a near-identical (hand-wave)
> > competitor, [AirTable][9], where I was able to get my prototype up and
> running in
> > under 2 hours[10]. Based on these criticisms and comparison with the
> > marketplace, a developer curious about RDF* receives ample signal to
> "close
> > tabs, move on," and drop out of the funnel.
> >
> > A. Lack of a Clear Entry Point
> > ==============================
> >
> > Compare "How do I write React" Google results with "How do I write RDF"
> Google
> > results.
> >
> > * React's first hit[3] is served by its authority (reactjs.org). It
> links
> >   to a description that is compelling, welcoming, and relatively easily
> >   scanned.  It's visually attractive and modern as well. It looks
> maintained.
> >
> > Versus:
> >
> > * RDF's first hit is hosted by w3schools.com[4] and feels scanty (NB:
> Not even
> > * a W3C link!)
> > * RDF's second hit is hosted by a site whose look and feel is akin to a
> >   textbook[5] and is equally exciting
> > * RDF's third hit[6] is the same
> > * RDF's fourth hit [7] is the first link that starts educating on the
> Jena API
> >
> > These sites look state of the art for the pre-Clinton era. Should one
> actually
> > find the W3C spec, the look-and-feel there (to say nothing of the
> writing style
> > and tone) suggests "Keep moving, peasant."
> >
> > As a pragmatic 33%-er, my intuition is screaming "Close tabs; abort."
> >
> > B. Lack of Technology Framing
> > =============================
> >
> > Compare the React home[2] to any of those previous links [3][4][5][6].
> The
> > navigational tree hits topics that provide "big picture," "tools
> required,"
> > "help if you get stuck," "what is this technology," and "when is it an
> optimal
> > choice?" By comparison, I don't have any idea what RDF* thinks its use
> or chief
> > benefits are.
> >
> > To the pragmatic 33%-er, React's site says: "You're welcome here,
> prepare to be
> > awesome."
> >
> > C. A Highly Fractured Ecosystem
> > ===============================
> >
> > Said Booth:
> >
> > > a painful reality has emerged: RDF is too hard for *average*
> developers.  By
> > > "average developers" I mean those in the middle 33 percent of ability.
> And by
> > > "RDF", I mean the whole RDF ecosystem -- including SPARQL, OWL, tools,
> > > standards, etc. -- everything that a developer touches when using RDF.
> >
> > While RDF is wonderfully graspable in its simplicity: triples that can be
> > serialized into multiple formats; its ecosystem  of clever acronyms and
> > backronyms is tedious, over-precious, and opaque.  RDF* requires the
> learner to
> > hold too many cognitive circuits open before anything starts to resolve.
> React
> > avoids this by doing complete layers (e.g. no classes, classes without
> JSX,
> > classes with JSX) where complete, albeit small, artifacts are created
> > repeatedly.
> >
> > Most of these technologies' defining document is a W3C standard written
> in the
> > opaque style of W3C standards (see Sporny, at length). While these
> standards
> > cover cases exhaustively, they're difficult to understand applying to a
> toy
> > example.  React makes tic-tac-toe from which I can extrapolate Twitter
> > integrations or JavaScript widgets. RDF* has no such entry point.
> >
> > Supposing one finds a canonical entry point, RDF* feels like it solves
> someone
> > else's problem and not mine (close tab; bye!).
> >
> > D. Lack of Automated Feedback
> > =============================
> >
> > One of the greatest things that happened in learning HTML (1994, in my
> case)
> > was the existence of validators to provide feedback of whether I was
> doing it
> > right. The RDF* suite provides me no feedback as to whether I'm doing it
> right.
> > When I get a serialization to parse, I can see a really pretty graph. Is
> that
> > _right_? Is that _recommended_? No idea. It's like learning German,
> going to
> > Germany, speaking German, and finding out that no one there will
> (patiently)
> > correct you when you use the wrong article.
> >
> > In all seriousness, I used Juan Sequeda et al's GRAFO[8] in order to have
> > something generate an artifact that I could use to confirm my use of
> hand-coded
> > RDF* and OWL.  Booth's comparison to Assembly is apt; many times
> developers let
> > `gcc` spit out Assembly code to get validation of their tedious-to-write,
> > difficult-to-edit hand codings. I say more about tooling in H, and I,
> below.
> >
> > Where tooling is unavailable (or engineering effort costly in time /
> money), a
> > suitable shim is possible with a (or multiple) canonical example(s).
> >
> > E. Lack of a Canonical Example
> > ==============================
> >
> > In the dawn of the JavaScript frameworks (2014-ish) _everyone_ did a
> TODO app.
> > One could compare Angular to Ember to Knockout to BatmanJS ('memba
> that?)  and
> > see what trade-offs the various implementers made. It was a problem with
> a
> > trivial domain but from whose implementation one could project the
> technology
> > learning ladder.
> >
> > RDF* lacks a consistent example. Where it is consistent, it is trivially
> small.
> > The most consistent example (in my experience) is using a `foaf:`
> ontology to
> > make some boring and fairly shallow statement e.g. "Alice knows Bob."
> Great. So
> > what? How do I start building classes, and predicates (schemas) and start
> > creating graphs based on my ideas?
> >
> > "Read more specs, pleb."
> >
> > Sigh.
> >
> > While it's readily obvious that we could use (the fractured ecosystem of)
> > ontology providers to assert more about Alice and Bob, to create a
> schema is an
> > entirely opaque process that isn't "ramped to" based on grokkable atoms.
> Where
> > do I go to get more properties? Should I mix multiple ontologies? Is
> there an
> > example? No.
> >
> > F. Lack of Intermediate Canonical Example
> > =========================================
> >
> > This is really an extension of E, but there's a huge gulf between some
> foaf-y
> > triviality and "Model a Medical Product Ontology." Uhm, how about
> something
> > obvious and fun (modeling board games, or card games, books,
> plays..anything?)
> >
> > G. Curiously Strong Rejection of SQL and OO as Metaphors
> > ========================================================
> >
> > RDF* is neither SQL nor Object-Oriented programming, but dear Mithras,
> SQL and
> > OO are powerful, pervasive metaphors that most RDF* learners' mental
> models
> > appeal to when they're learning. Why aren't we translating trivial OO
> code or
> > trivial DB modeling in those metaphors to RDF*?
> >
> > Considering the blood, sweat, tears, and bile I lost learning to write
> SQL
> > construction commands I'm galled to type the following: It's easier to
> learn to
> > write SQL tables by hand (schema as well as content) than it is to
> design an
> > RDF* schema and load it up.
> >
> > (To say nothing of the gigabytes of tutorial material, StackOverflow
> posts, etc.
> > to help correct and steer you out of the gutter.)
> >
> > I re-read this now and am staggered. RDF*'s a data format that's
> conceptually
> > _simpler_ than SQL but which is _orders of magnitude_ harder to learn
> (see A-F,
> > above).
> >
> > H. Lack of Tools
> > ================
> >
> > Beginners drown in the options. Booth's suggestion of a default stack
> (even
> > better if we could get it in http://repl.it) is very much needed. Give
> me a
> > canonical (even dumbed down) version of tools that let me work through
> the
> > canonical examples and then I'll write Python or Ruby or use GUI
> abstractions
> > to get out of the, per Booth, assembly language verbosity of the RDF*
> stack.
> >
> > Many e.g. UNIX tutorials use nano (these days, I used pico back in the
> 90's).
> > This is sensible. Trust that the learner will soon tire of the tool (or
> not)
> > and decide to upgrade their tooling (unto `vim`, say). But by all means,
> make
> > them effective!
> >
> > Why not use use turtle or N3 or (better yet!) JSON (because people know
> > it) consistently? Whichever is simpler and more neatly fits in code
> samples.
> > Because of the hesitancy to voice a strong opinion or a good starting
> point,
> > beginners don't know where to start and drown in the undifferentiated
> murk.
> >
> > Close tabs; move on.
> >
> > I. Obvious Moribundity of Tools
> > ===============================
> >
> > I first started learning about RDF* technology in Austin, TX at Cyc
> under the
> > organizational passion of one Juan Sequeda in 2008-9. Can you imagine how
> > staggered I was to find that the tooling ecosystem has made no
> appreciable
> > progress in a literal decade? Name any other software that can see so
> little
> > growth and still be called "vibrant." The majority of tools I downloaded
> > required JVM and / or failed to start when installed locally. Web
> options were
> > poor as well.
> >
> > I rather enjoyed my trial of Grafo[8] as it's the first twitch of life
> I've
> > seen in this space since before the Obama administration.
> >
> > J. Faster, More-Than "Just Barely Good Enough" Competitors
> > ==========================================================
> >
> > By way of comparison, I _just now_ used Airtable[9] to build my book
> cataloging
> > proposal[1] in 2 intuitive, friendly hours and I can readily see how to
> extend
> > it to serve my problem domain.
> >
> > I grant that I'm losing the advanced query structure of SPARQL (which
> confuses
> > me to no end and promises hours of delightful spec reading; no loss) and
> the
> > hopes for inference, but at roughly the same time it takes to grok one
> of the
> > 1-5 standards one has to read to use RDF*, I have something that I can
> provide
> > as a read-only share to anyone reading this post:
> >
> > https://airtable.com/shrJILw0CTILV0My2
> >
> > (*and* AirTable features like collaboration, note history sans RCS,
> read-only
> > sharing, etc.)
> >
> > Airtable has existed substantially less time than RDF* and has solved a
> > majority of the tool-chain, reference implementation, bootstrapping
> hurdles.
> > React has done the same. Why as RDF*'s ecosystem so fundamentally failed
> to
> > meet the quality, ease, and friendliness of these latecomer technologies?
> >
> > Conclusion
> > ==========
> >
> > I'm sure I certainly stepped on some toes here. I'm sorry if I hurt YOUR
> > feelings. No one likes to have tech they wrote or tech that they labored
> to get
> > up and over the learning curve on whipped like this.
> >
> > I also know that I'm dissmissable with:
> >
> > * "Just RTFM better"
> > * "If it was meant to be easy we wouldn't be getting PhDs in it"
> > * "It's a specification, precision and authority outrank ease of use."
> > * "Your dumb book logging idea is too simple a domain for technology this
> >   powerful, use an Excel sheet, peasant."
> >
> > But I hope this can be a clarion call: commercial entities are doing
> similar
> > work with beautiful interfaces that are intuitive and running laps
> around the
> > RDF* universe. If the bar for RDF* remains as high as it is, the future
> of the
> > web will be _theirs_ to decide; Facebook squashed foaf, Facebook /
> Google squashed
> > OpenID, something like if not AirTable will squash RDF* at this rate.
> >
> > Kathy Sierra said one of the most profound things I ever heard at SXSW
> in the
> > early aughts (about the time I was dabbling with SW): "When tools are
> great,
> > users say 'This tool is awesome'; when tools or docs are awful, users
> say 'I
> > suck.'" After 10 years of feeling like "I suck" in RDF* land, I'm
> starting to
> > wonder why I'm still trying.
> >
> > Footnotes
> > =========
> >
> > *: Booth has overloaded "RDF" to mean an ecosystem. I'll be using "RDF"
> > similarly.
> >
> > References
> > ==========
> >
> >     [0]:
> https://stevengharms.com/research/semweb-topic/problem_statement/
> >     [1]: https://stevengharms.com/research/semweb/
> >     [2]:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2018Nov/0036.html
> >     [2]: https://reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html
> >     [4]: https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_rdf.asp
> >     [5]: http://www.linkeddatatools.com/introducing-rdf-part-2
> >     [6]: http://www.linkeddatatools.com/introducing-rdf
> >     [7]: https://jena.apache.org/tutorials/rdf_api.html
> >     [8]: https://gra.fo/
> >     [9]: https://airtable.com
> >     [10]: https://airtable.com/shrJILw0CTILV0My2
> >
> > --
> > Steven G. Harms
> > PGP: E6052DAF
>
>