- From: Len Bullard <cbullard@hiwaay.net>
- Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 18:42:44 -0600
- To: Jeff Sussna <jeff.sussna@quokka.com>
- CC: "'Mark Birbeck'" <Mark.Birbeck@iedigital.net>, xml-dev@xml.org, www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Jeff Sussna wrote: > > ... inventions are only useful to > the extent to which they are used. If an invention is brilliant but > incomprehensible, no one will use it. Inventions are used to the extent they are needed once you get above the new, different, opportunistic threshholds. If RDF orSomethingLikeIt meets a clearly understood requirement, it will get used. XML is a good example of a technology disregarded until implementors discovered they needed it Eg, SGML worked well. HTML worked great. HTML quit being adaptible. Selling a project to subset SGML was easy after that. Now it is a huge success story instead of a CALS cause celebre. > I worry sometimes that RDF will fall > prey to a similar history as Lisp and Smalltalk. There is a pretty good chance that will be the case. Meanwhile, simplified versions of the ideas it attempts to standardize can thrive, a la HTML. If as stated, it is as easy as a URI used as a primary key in a relational database, we are already doing that and publishing relational schemas. Works great. So why, again, do I need RDF? What will it do today? Can I buy a product faster that does it better? len
Received on Thursday, 24 February 2000 19:49:41 UTC