- From: Deborah McGuinness <dlm@KSL.Stanford.EDU>
- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:50:51 -0800
- To: Pat Hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- CC: Jeff Heflin <heflin@cse.lehigh.edu>, webont <www-webont-wg@w3.org>
Pat Hayes wrote: > >Dan, > > > >Most of these comments appear to be improvements, so we'll incoroprate > >them into the document. I'll work on a rewording of "the problems with > >lack of semantics in XML" to describe specific problems for specific > >uses. > > > >Jeff > > > > > >Dan Connolly wrote: > >> > >> Our requirements document is going to > >> be the first exposure that some folks > >> get to our work; I can imagine > >> it showing up in Robin Cover's XML > >> new stuff; he'll probably grab the abstract: > >> > >> "This document specifies goals, requirements, and usage scenarios for > >> the OWL web ontology language." > >> > >> I can imagine xml-dev/www-talk folks saying, "er.. > >> gee, thanks; now what's an ontology > >> language?" > >> > >> That's elaborated later in the document; let's > >> see if there's some text to grab... yes: > >> > >> Put simply, an ontology is just a set of > >> standard vocabularly terms along with some > >> formal definitions of the terms. > >> > >> Lightly edited: > >> > >> An ontology is vocabularly of terms along > >> with some formal definitions of the terms. > >> > > Err.. I'd prefer it if you could avoid using the word 'definition' > here. The point being that ontologies only describe, in general, > rather than define. If we say that a description is a definition > then we can get into all kinds of trouble, eg consider Peter's > pseudo-paradox problem which arises from thinking of an RDF > description as a *definition* of OWL syntax. > <snip> I agree, i use the term description unless I am talking about necessary and sufficient conditions for class membership. > > >.....> > >> The term ontology may be unfamiliar to many readers of > >> this document. > >> > >> That seems superfluous. I suggest striking it. > >> > >> This notion of ontologies comes from Artificial Intelligence, > >> where ontologies are used to allow heterogeneous systems to > >> exchange and reason with information. > >> > >> I'd suggest either citing specific work in this area > >> or striking the reference to Artificial Intelligence. > > I agree. In any case, you could equally well cite data modelling > languages, say; and the basic ideas go back way before AI if you want > to get historical, at least to the 1940s and maybe the 1880s. > I agree that particular work should be cited. in the paper i cited, i referred to a number of particular pieces of work in ai and relied on an article guarino wrote in the 1998 FOIS book that had MANY citations in it on ontologies. I also cited that webster dates ontology to 1721 and at least husserl used the term in the late 1800's with a citable reference i had from 1900. > > > > > >> One of the problems with using ordinary XML is that the > >> elements and attributes defined by DTDs or XML Schemas do > >> not have any semantics associated with them; > >> > >> I think a lot of folks in our audience see the lack > >> of semantics in XML as a feature, not a problem. > >> Even myself: I don't see a lack of semantics in XML > >> as a problem with XML, any more than the lack > >> of semantics in s-expressions or binary trees > >> is a problem. > > It's an opportunity for developers, but a problem for content > providers. Who do we think we are talking to here? > > Pat > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > IHMC (850)434 8903 home > 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office > Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax > phayes@ai.uwf.edu > http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes -- Deborah L. McGuinness Knowledge Systems Laboratory Gates Computer Science Building, 2A Room 241 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-9020 email: dlm@ksl.stanford.edu URL: http://ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm (voice) 650 723 9770 (stanford fax) 650 725 5850 (computer fax) 801 705 0941
Received on Monday, 18 February 2002 15:51:35 UTC