SemWeb future ?

Hi.

I touched the subject of semantics in a earlier mail.

One of the promises of xml, is that it adds meaning or context  to
content.

I think that this maybe should be rephrased as 'adding maybe human
readable context to content, but '.

Having worked with SemWeb for a while now, I begin to realize that we
need to work hard in placing xml in a proper context, if we shall not
all be deemed guilty of eXtreme Marketing Language (XML).

At the Danish Post we're using xml as 'advanced ascii', ie. it is easy
to define advanced dataexchange structures.

But our edifact experience tells us, that different people will perceive
the field <Amount> quite different.

So that the semantics of a document isn't  captured, just by marking it
up in xml.

Which leads me onwards: Has anyone succeeded in using SemWeb
technologies, such as e.g ontologies or DAML+OIL in real life projects?

I guess that to lift XML up from 'advanced ascii' to 'content in
context', we need not just Xquery, xmlschema, next gen. xslt, but also
RDF-S, ontologies etc.

I do hope that the popularity of XML, will help to kickstart some of the
more advanced SemWeb technologies.

If we can succeed in doing this, I guess  that we will be granted witj
the 'key' to the next level of development.

I noted Mike Kays mail about programmers not being able to let loose of
the control flow of their programs. I think that Mike really touched
something there, thoug I'm not sure whether it was a political correct
statement.

But Mike's right, there has gotta be a new paradigm just around the
corner.

With semantic regard 

Jens Jakob Andersen

Received on Monday, 12 November 2001 07:23:48 UTC