[SE] ODA draft

Comments on ODA draft

1) abstract is not an abstract. An abstract should be a short summary of 
the content of the paper.
The end of the introduction is fairly close to an abstract

2) Suggest moving the definition of acronym (SSE) from abstract into its 
first use in main text (currently in Target Audience)

3) I found the history section 2.1, 2.2 off-putting.
   This is largely stylistic. For example, I was happy with the 
treatment of the same history in one of the presentations at the SE 
Workshop in ISWC. I suggest taking some of the treatement from Rudi 
Studer's slides.
 
My main stylistic problem is that there is metanarrative concerning 
progress of SE.

Metanarratives were originally introduced in religions, particularly 
Judaism and its derivatives - and place the present within a grand 
picture, typically leading from some problem state to a wonderful solution.

In the 19th and 20th centuries metanarratives concerning progress were 
very popular, for example, communism.

However, since the second world war metanarratives have been falling 
into disrepute, partly due to some obvious abuse of them by various regimes.

In terms of your text, the migration from functions to subroutines and 
libraries, to objects to bundles etc is given without any hint of doubt 
or distancing.
For example "such approaches could no longer effectively manage shared 
data and concurrency" may or may not be true; a more limited statement, 
which does not commit so much to the present being an improvement on the 
past, rather than merely a variant, would be say:

"'object oriented' programming was introduced in the mid 1980s with the 
hope of better managing shared data and concurrency"

This does not commit as to whether that hope has been fulfilled, or even 
as to whether or not there was a problem. This phrasing hence makes 
fewer assumptions that the reader and writer of the document share 
judgements about what is good and bad in system design, and is more 
inclusive.

I have particular problems with the use of the word 'logical'. Typically 
metanarratives have a logic of their own which is often evil, which is 
one of the key reasons they have been falling into disrepute. (I am 
unclear as to whether I am writing a metanarrative of metanarratives)

4) Another stylistic problem was the use of unattributed positions.
e.g. "Indeed many experts now consider " - reference please. Or rephrase 
to make a statement which you wholly own, and don't step away from.
Again "Similar to current work in Semantic Web Services" which work?
"practitioners" who?
"a commonly asked question" who is asking?


5) I've scribbled "speculation" beside the subbullets under mechanism in 
sectioon 3.1, I think particularly triggered by "could be viewed as".

6) Again phrasing under "a collection of Semantic Webs"
I think the position stated is defensible but the language used could be 
improved

7) Notes should not promise or suggest much further work e.g "a 
potential future note form [sic] this taskforce"

8) Again the "speculative" word along side the bullet points after: 
"employing such techniques:"

9) I found the references odd - why divide into normative and 
informative, since this note has no normative content.

10) The phrase "notoriously ambiguous UML" is again unattributed and 
unnecessary, except to persuade the reader by rhetoric of a position 
that may be defensible, but is not defended in this document. Either 
back up such an assertion with references and/or argument or delete it. 
It is unnecessary.


====

I need to review the proceedings of
http://www.mel.nist.gov/msid/conferences/SWESE/

once I have I'll try and send more comments.
Overall, as you know, I enjoyed the workshop immensely; and both there 
and in the primer, there seems to be plenty of better grounded material 
to make a compelling case for many of the positions taken in this paper.

Jeremy

Received on Tuesday, 15 November 2005 17:39:38 UTC