Re: complexity (was: Re: XHTML and RDF)

Orion Adrian wrote:
> On another point. Breaking backwards compatability is often a good idea. 
> Cleaning up a design is often as important as extending it. XHTML 1.1 
> and HTML 4.01 are good specs in that regard.
> RDF, OWL, XML Schema are also specs that need to cull back and rethink.


Catching up on the QA list after a bit I found this thread ...

Picking up on your sense of having been ignored, yet at the same time not 
having ideas about specifically RDF and OWL, for both of which I share 
collective responsibility.

In the W3C, at least the parts I have seen, if you want to be heard you 
have to make comments on the documents during WD stage. It is best to make 
your comments early and then make them again at last call if they haven't 
been addressed to your satisfaction. Every W3C Working Draft has an e-mail 
address for comments. Your thoughts on OWL and RDF were ignored because you 
did not express them using this mechanism.

===

Your comments about a single vision are interesting with respect to OWL: it 
really was two distinct visions being hammered together; and the vision of 
by far the majority of the group (in my subjective opinion) was that 
getting the two things to work together (Description Logics and RDF) was 
worth the pretty ugly compromises that appear in section 4 of the OWL 
Semantics. (Sections 2 and 3 are a DL vision, section 5 an RDF vision, 
section 4 is the seam).

We realized that this was deeply problematic from the point of view of a 
clean design, but we ended up with four independent implementations of 
section 4 during CR

I am increasing believing in the value of committees myself.

Jeremy

Received on Sunday, 18 April 2004 16:33:46 UTC