Re: Learning from other disciplines?

The AKT example in that note seems to me to be in the wrong direction.
The problem is that there is no theory of what AKT is. Here is a
theory: AKT is some class of proteins, instances of which are
individual protein molecules. Later it is discovered that there are
various subclasses (no surprises - any class can have subclasses, and
even AKT, before the "splitting" could be considered to have
subclasses - for instance those that were phosphorylated).
When these subclasses are discovered, one adds ... subclass axioms.
AKT1 subclassOf AKT.

Separately one has terminology. The word "AKT" was initially only a
label for AKT. Later it also became a label for AKT1. No surprise
again - words are notoriously ambiguous.

There is no need to introduce these *completely undefined* relations
s:isBroaderThan etc. There *is* a need to understand and use existing
*defined* mechanisms, such as rdfs:subClassOf and rdfs:label, in this
case.

rdfs:comment wouldn't be a bad idea while we're at it.

-Alan

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Michael Hausenblas
<michael.hausenblas@deri.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks David!
>
> Re http://dbooth.org/2007/splitting/ - yes, I'm aware of it (actually
> bookmarked it on delicious on 26 Jan 2009 ;) and of course I read it.
>
> I must admit that when I read your note I didn't really get/see this point.
> My bad, sorry.
>
> @Jonathan: as there are at least two people around that think into the same
> direction and maybe some more that could imagine this can solve some of our
> issues around httpRange, IR, etc. - how about adding it to the TAG F2F
> agenda? Or is it too late? Too vague?
>
> Cheers,
>      Michael
>
> --
> Dr. Michael Hausenblas
> DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
> National University of Ireland, Lower Dangan,
> Galway, Ireland, Europe
> Tel. +353 91 495730
> http://sw-app.org/about.html
> http://webofdata.wordpress.com/
>
>
>> From: "Booth, David (HP Software - Boston)" <dbooth@hp.com>
>> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:06:53 +0000
>> To: Michael Hausenblas <michael.hausenblas@deri.org>, AWWSW TF
>> <public-awwsw@w3.org>
>> Subject: RE: Learning from other disciplines?
>>
>> Michael,
>>
>> That sounds similar what I've been arguing for quite a while:
>>
>>  (a) Ambiguity is unavoidable. (Pat Hayes has articulated this point much
>> better than me though.)
>>
>>  (b) The ambiguity involved in failing to distinguish between an IR and a
>> non-IR is not fundamentally different than other kinds of ambiguity.
>>
>>  (c) Something that is adequately clear and unambiguous to one application may
>> be ambiguous to another application, because different apps have different
>> needs.  A URI such as http://markbaker.ca/ that denotes both a person and a
>> web page may be perfectly fine for an application that has no need to
>> distinguish between IRs and non-IRs, but it may cause confusion and havok to
>> an application that relies on such a distinction.
>>
>>  (d) Therefore, there is no need to view such IR-versus-non-IR ambiguity as a
>> violation of web architecture, though it may be a violation of good practice.
>>
>> These points are explained a but further in
>> http://dbooth.org/2007/splitting/#httpRange-14
>>
>>
>>
>> David Booth, Ph.D.
>> HP Software
>> +1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
>> http://www.hp.com/go/software
>>
>> Statements made herein represent the views of the author and do not
>> necessarily represent the official views of HP unless explicitly so stated.
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: public-awwsw-request@w3.org
>>> [mailto:public-awwsw-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Michael Hausenblas
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 8:39 AM
>>> To: AWWSW TF
>>> Subject: Learning from other disciplines?
>>>
>>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>> This is a crazy idea, but please give it a thought before
>>> rejecting it ...
>>>
>>> As far as I gather 'we' sort of fail to agree if we
>>> should/can define IR and
>>> non-IR or even if we need to differentiate between documents
>>> and abstract
>>> things at all. One could now try to understand the problem
>>> from a totally
>>> different point of view by learning from quantum mechanics.
>>>
>>> You are surely aware of the waveparticle duality [1]? So why
>>> can't we try
>>> to apply the same idea here. We can say, for example, that for a given
>>> application/use case the distinction between IR and non-IR
>>> makes no sense at
>>> all and hence is useless; all that counts at the end of the
>>> day are some
>>> bytes and maybe some metadata that we can get over the wire.
>>> In other cases
>>> one thing may be abstract or one thing may be a document. The
>>> Web version of
>>> the 'waveparticle duality'-equivalent would then render sort of:
>>>
>>> ===
>>> The 'document-thing duality' addresses the inadequacy of
>>> classical concepts
>>> (from the operating system domain, software development, etc.) like
>>> "document" and "abstract thing" in fully describing the behaviour of
>>> Web-scale objects.
>>> ===
>>>
>>> Comments, anyone?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>       Michael
>>>
>>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality
>>>
>>> PS: Jonathan, thanks a lot for your detailed comments re the
>>> dependencies
>>> visualisation - I will address them in a separate mail (esp.
>>> the n^2 table
>>> approach - I like it ;)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr. Michael Hausenblas
>>> DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
>>> National University of Ireland, Lower Dangan,
>>> Galway, Ireland, Europe
>>> Tel. +353 91 495730
>>> http://sw-app.org/about.html
>>> http://webofdata.wordpress.com/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 26 February 2009 10:06:13 UTC