Re: Fwd: Re: a concern on SW technologies: document content

Danny Ayers wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Bob DuCharme <bob@snee.com>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Yes, RDF and related technologies fall short in areas where XML and 
> XQuery
> shine, but XML and XQuery fall short in areas where RDF shines. (And they
> both fall short in areas where relational databases shine, and... etc.)
Hmm... So you can make up for the problem realm by handling SQL, XML, 
and RDF in one place then :-)
>
> RDF is a data model. Certain problem domains map very well to that data
> model, especially large collections of assignments of values to objects
> that  don't normalize into relational tables well. An add-on like OWL
> makes it easier to define relationships between otherwise unrelated
> classes of information, making it easier to use the aggregate sources
> together.

Amen!
>
> RDF can add a lot to a publishing system, but tracking the relationship
> between in-line elements and their containing block elements (i.e. mixed
> content) is not something it can help much. For example, it can be 
> used to
> store metadata about documents and document associations as files moves
> through a workflow. (So can plain XML as retrieved by XQuery, but
> RDF-based data from multiple documents can be aggregated and used with
> much less custom coding.)
>
> RDF can be used to track information about any element with its own 
> ID. In
> the case of block elements, this is useful for the publishing industry
> because if one block of a document stores a recipe, another a book
> excerpt, and another a picture, there will be separate metadata to store
> about each. Even inline elements as independent units to track can have
> value added if they have an ID; a linking element may have a link type
> assigned, the date that the link's validity was last verified, etc. 
> Taking
> advantage of an inline element's relationship to its containing element,
> though, is not something where RDF can help.
>
> Searching within documents is what XQuery is for. Querying information
> about the relationships between documents with specific but sometimes
> varying semantics is where RDF (/OWL) shines. When searching a collection
> of insurance policies from different companies, they will have some 
> fields
> in common, some different fields, some fields that look different but 
> mean
> the same thing... treating them as a consistent collection will take a 
> lot
> of XQuery custom coding, but with RDF + SPARQL, it will only take the
> application of an increasingly popular standard way of specifying the
> semantics of each company's forms (OWL) to treat the collection as a
> single aggregate to query against.
During a podcast I had with Jon Udell [1] a few months he aptly picked 
on specific comments I made about SPARQL and XQuery [2]:
SPARQL will help you find what you want, and if what you find is in TEXT 
form (typical of Web Content), XQuery will help you navigate what you 
found. I am sure you can also see how this can take the form of SPARQL 
search for Graph Navigation and XQuery traversal of the result of a 
SPARQL search, all occurring in one Server Process :-)

Links:
1. http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html
2. http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/05/09.html

Note: The transcript by Amazon's Mechanical Turk is somewhat inaccurate 
(I've never had the time to trawl through and correct since it isn't in 
Wiki form)

Kingsley
>
> My XML 2006 talk
> (http://2006.xmlconference.org/programme/presentations/188.html) was
> unfortunately in the same time slot as another one on integration of
> different data sources using RDF/OWL
> (http://2006.xmlconference.org/programme/presentations/57.html), and this
> other one used XQuery as well. I'm looking forward to finding out more
> about what Ken and Ronald did and how they did it; more information is
> available at http://www.rrecktek.com/xml2006/, although I haven't had a
> chance to look closely at it yet.
>
> Bob DuCharme
> http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog
>
>
> On Sat, December 9, 2006 4:28 am, Danny Ayers wrote:
>> Hi Bob,
>>
>> If you have a minute, I'd be very grateful for your thoughts on the
>> post below (from the Semantic Web Education & Outreach list :
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sweo-ig/2006Dec/0080.html )
>>  - let me know if ok to pass back to the list.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Danny.
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Lee Feigenbaum <feigenbl@us.ibm.com>
>> Date: 08-Dec-2006 21:52
>> Subject: a concern on SW technologies: document content
>> To: public-sweo-ig@w3.org
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi SWEOids,
>>
>> Wing and I had an interesting and somewhat enlightening conversation 
>> with
>> another IBMer today. Our colleague was somewhat familiar with the SW 
>> world
>> and is very familiar with the XML world, and he expressed concerns 
>> that SW
>> technologies (and RDF / SPARQL in particular) may fall short in one
>> prominent area in which XML / XQuery shines: dealing with 
>> content-oriented
>> (often mixed content) documents. He was concerned about this given 
>> some of
>> our claims about the value of RDF/SW technologies as a unifying
>> environment for data and metadata.
>>
>> He gave various examples ranging from insurance policies to resumes to
>> rentral agreements, with the basic idea being that XQuery can easily
>> answer questions that involve searching within a document (or, more-so,
>> searching for text in a particular paragraph of a document, perhaps with
>> emphasis added) which uses XML markup. He wondered aloud and we 
>> discussed
>> what the SW approach to this would be, and we agreed that it's lacking
>> right now. He expressed worry that whereas XML can wrap data that 
>> might be
>> best expressed as relational or RDF data (and then join that data in
>> XQuery queries with document data), the RDF world may not have as nice a
>> story.
>>
>> I (personally) need to think the issues here through a bit more, but 
>> to me
>> it was not an objection that I've heard commonly, but it was an
>> interesting one to which I had no immediate response, so I wanted to 
>> throw
>> it out here and solicit thoughts and/or feedback. (I don't think it's
>> imperative that we have an immediate or bulletproof response to every
>> potential SW objection, but thinking about where the technologies fall
>> short in addition to where they excel should help us craft our 
>> messaging.)
>>
>> have a good weekend everyone,
>> Lee
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> http://dannyayers.com
>>
>
>
>


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Saturday, 9 December 2006 17:17:52 UTC