Re: What Happened to the Semantic Web?

On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 6:39 AM, Sean B. Palmer <sean@miscoranda.com> wrote:
> ...We have SPARQL parsers now, but at the time myself and others had to
> make those parsers with our bare hands. The point is that SPARQL won
> over superior alternatives, and that we can *still learn* from those
> alternatives even though they did not become widely deployed
> standards. SPARQL won not due to its technological superiority, but
> because of other factors such as easing the mental transition from
> SQL...

This is a narrow definition of "technological superiority." There is
an endless (and continuously growing) list of products --- VHS,
Windoze, etc --- that dominated because they satisfied market demands,
despite being clearly "inferior" in certain measures. Viewed as
*solutions*, these technologies can in retrospect be seen as superior,
because they satisfied a broader set of market requirements.

One could say the same of SPARQL, or any number of W3C recommendations
that exhibit consensus if not superior specifications over considered
alternatives.

-- 
John S. Erickson, Ph.D.
Director of Operations, The Rensselaer IDEA
Deputy Director, Web Science Research Center (RPI)
<http://idea.rpi.edu/> <olyerickson@gmail.com>
Twitter & Skype: olyerickson

Received on Friday, 13 October 2017 11:06:57 UTC