- From: Joshua Allen <joshuaa@microsoft.com>
- Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 12:54:04 -0800
- To: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@acm.org>, <semantic-web@w3.org>
> > there must be de facto standards of classifing > > information or else the very cause of classification > > is useless. > > > > People point at a mountain and utter a sign. That's how language > > starts. People fall into habits of signing and people learn those > > habits. No "de facto standards" are necessary, just habits ... repeated > > usages ... people repeating things that work for them. > > > > Yep. Then someone decides to record descriptions of all those habitual > usages in a document of some kind (often called a "dictionary" in > non-computer circles). And people start referring to that document Dictionaries are simply snapshot of current usage at a particular point in time [0]. The disease of attributing any more authority than that is thankfully constrained to the priesthood; the "vulgate" or "putonghua" simply ignore the dictionary and talk to each other. The argument for ontologies is often that they are a pre-requisite for meaningful communication. Imagine how ridiculous on the face it would be to claim that mother could not converse with child without first reading a dictionary. Therefore, ontologies and dictionaries are not at all alike. [0] http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/Whos+The+Master.aspx
Received on Friday, 16 December 2005 20:55:22 UTC