Re: SEM: Face-to-Face version of approaches document

At 11:52 AM 4/5/2002 -0500, Jeff Heflin wrote:
>...
>
>4) I am not in favor of formal sub-languages. If the Semantic Web
>follows the "layer cake" design, there will already be plenty of layers;
>if we starting adding sublayers to each layer, then things just get too
>confusing (I've already heard people complain that they have to read too
>many specs to understand this Semantic Web stuff: XML, RDF, RDF-Schema,
>DAML+OIL, that's a lot of reading!). However, I would be in favor in
>using the layers informally to present the language. This allows people
>to learn the basics quickly, and to gain proficiency in the language at
>their own pace.
Hi Jeff,

I am not quite sure how deeply you thought about your argument.
Layering the language does not introduce any new documents.
Instead it helps to break a long and thick document into a number
of significant smaller ones. Therefore, most readers have to read
less and not more material. They (tool and application builders)
can refer to a smaller piece of technology they want to support and
they need. By giving this strata a name you have a defined way
in which people can realize the level of complexity they need.
Without such strata you have one bad alternative:

-       people are forced to subscribe to an over-complex approach
         for their goals, or
-       people introduce ad-hoc subsets without any clear linkage
         to other ad-hoc subsets.

As I argue for such a point of view now for more than three years
without having heart any convincing counter-argument I am not
going to add one more word on it.

Doei,

Dieter
----------------------------------------------------------------
Dieter Fensel
Tel. (mobil): +31-(0)6-51850619,
http://www.google.com/search?q=dieter or http://www.fensel.com