Re: Putting Government Data online

Pat,

I want to emphasize that my proposal is *upward compatible* with the
methodologies and practices developed by the Semantic Web community.

PH> John and Danny, you are both right  :-)   John is right that
 > the SWeb should be based on FOL, and Danny is right that names,
 > and the processes of designing, agreeing on, and using names
 > are critically important (and traditional logic hasn't paid
 > any attention to this stuff.)

There is not a single methodology, practice, or technique that
anyone uses today that they can't continue to use with my proposal.

The only thing that I suggest that people *stop* doing is turning
human eyeballs on the raw notations for RDF and OWL.  All the
current tools are being designed to make those notations as
invisible as possible to humans.

I am just proposing the next obvious step:  make the XML-based
notations for RDF and OWL *optional* for document exchange as
well:

  1. The recommended exchange form for RDF will become JSON.
     Any JSON documents that are limited to triples can use
     the old XML-based RDF form, but they can also use the
     more compact and more general full JSON.

  2. Development tools such as Protege can generate *either*
     the current XML-based notation for OWL or they can
     generate a new notation for OWL based on Common Logic.

  3. Programs that use XSLT to manipulate RDF and OWL will have
     to use the old XML-based notations.  But newer programs
     can take advantage of more powerful methodologies.

Among the newer, more powerful methodologies are -- surprise! --
*all* the old methodologies for software development such as UML.

The goal of my proposal is nothing less than a total *integration*
of the Semantic Web methodologies with the methodologies that have
been used in the traditional software development community.

That integration will also support an open-ended flowering of
new logic-based methodologies in which the boundaries between
relational DBs, object-oriented DBs, and web-based documents
vanish, disappear, and become *irrelevant* for everything
except the lowest level of tweaks and optimizations that are
performed by automated or at least semi-automated means.

PH> Take a look at the last slide of http://is.gd/1ehQK

I recommend that slide and the full talk by Pat.

I strongly endorse a logic-based vision in which the Semantic Web,
the Semantic DBs, the Knowledge Bases, and the rule-based systems
merge in a seamless *Semantic System* in which the boundaries and
distinguishing labels vanish.

John

Received on Friday, 26 June 2009 17:09:27 UTC