Re: A thought about requirements

On May 28, 2006, at 6:15 PM, Francis McCabe wrote:

> This note is in reaction to what I feel is a misplaced spirit in  
> this group.
>
> I do not have the numbers to hand, but my estimation is that in the  
> 'rules market', it would not surprise me if the 'production rule'- 
> based technology owned 95% of the market. But you would not know  
> that watching the traffic on this list.

And so? Many of the members of the group are not in the PR rules  
market, so it's irrelevant to us, except insofar as those of us with  
customers (or other consitencies) of some sort have customers who are  
interested in interchanging with PR rulesets.

The traffic on the list reflects the interests of the group. Each  
participant in the group represents their member organization and its  
interests. That's how a working group works. If my organization's  
interest is to delay or kill production rules, that's our  
prerogative. I don't know that anyone on this group has that agenda,  
at least per se, (no organization I'm a member of has voiced this to  
me), but neither do they have an interest in classic production rule  
like systems.

If you, or others, have such an interest, it's up to you to stick up  
for it.

> By ignoring the PRR side of the side this group risks making itself  
> irrelevant.
[snip]

To you perhaps, but it's a little rash for you to judge *our*  
interests and appropriate notions of relevance.

Now, I've heard appeals from PR advocates (on the one hand) and e.g.,  
Semantic Web advocates (on the other) that working together to meet  
both sets of needs is both possible and offers a boost to each side.  
I don't really think that will work, as I said at the Rules Workshop  
(at least, I don't think that a joint group is the best way to  
proceed). But fine. At least that is a *respectful* approach.

Let's face it, to gain consensus, everyone has to offer something to  
opposing interests. But saying, "foo is important, screw bar" is  
unlikely to win, at least easily.

But I totally refuse to apologize for representing the interests of  
my organzation(s) (er...when I've gotten myself back together enough  
to make a telecon :)), and I refuse to stop doing it.

As for the rest, basically, I think that we're treating existing  
languages as embodying application needs, so afaict, we try to deal  
languages, not specific applications. As long as the languages have  
real user bases, I don't see this is silly. However, there is a deep  
question about what useful interchange can be supported across so  
many wildly different paradigms.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Monday, 29 May 2006 01:58:11 UTC