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Re: [ontolog-forum] How not to write specifications (VISTA costs)

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 22:14:10 +0200
Message-id: <015401c8dd49$6565f170$0100a8c0@Dev>
Len, well said (notwithstanding Ken's subsequent valid but
relatively minor qualifications), especially in this last sentence
which I've lifted from your message below:    (01)

> So the main question is how to produce ontologies 'in a wild' in
> your backyard?    (02)

You will see (in my long-promised but still forthcoming "5th
instalment" of my "MACK basics" series of posts to this list) how
in a MACK-compliant world exactly such micro-activities in
zillions of Internet-leveraging backyards will result at the macro
level in a rich and spectacularly evolving ecosystem.  Those
ontologies will be replicators and "selfish memes" thanks to their
precisely-determined, sharable and extensible "Common Knowledge"
nature.    (03)

A necessary condition (which will of course prevail in the
resulting MACK-based "Democratic Web" medium and marketplace) is
that those wildly-produced ontologies must tend to be
agilely-reusable in producing applications which can build on or
interoperate with others in the information market ecosystem so
that natural democratic selection can operate on them efficiently.    (04)

So that 5th instalment will, I hope, clearly enough show how that
scenario is more than plausible, thanks to the drastic mutation of
the notion of the ontology as already touched on in the 4th
instalment.  Then, paralleling gene-expression in terms of
proteins and ultimately determining the phenotype,
ontology-expression will take place radically more directly in
terms of application components and ultimately be manifest in
humanly-meaningful application behaviour.    (05)

Just as modularity characterizes the roles and relationships of
genes, proteins, molecular pathways, cells, organs, organisms and
societies in natural evolution, so also is the modularity which
John Sowa so relevantly drew to our attention in this thread key
to the systemic health of our information ecosystem.    (06)

Finally, please be reassured that the technicalities of the coming
5th instalment stand independently of all the above biological
imagery, which here functions as a mere preamble!    (07)

Till "real soon now" in the 5th instalment, I hope...    (08)

Christopher    (09)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Len Yabloko" <lenya@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] How not to write specifications
(VISTA costs)    (010)


> Hello everyone! Being a software engineer myself I can't resist
> to making a few comments on this thread.
>
> First let me say that the subject of 'writing specifications',
> even though it may seem accidental start of ever expanding
> discussions so typical for this forum, - is IMHO at the core of
> current state in software engineering. I don't know if ever
> before in history of engineering specifications played such role
> as it does now in software. Was any piece of engineering ever
> built so freely , 'creatively'(in a sense of interpreting needs)
> and to popular taste? Even such consumer staples as cars and
> computers are expected to meet certain standards. Not so with
> software!
>
>>So the cost in current dollars while large is quite a bit less
>>than the
>>entire Apollo Program....
>
> Apollo was a 'mission' with clear target. No one (correct me if
> I am wrong) had a liberty to adjust it for market conditions or
> to move that target closer and make it more attainable.
> Microsoft had created a market more than delivered a product.
> This is a different definition of 'mission accomplished'.  This
> is 'social engineering' more than software engineering. But this
> a key to  understanding software as phenomenon - melting of
> media, fashion and technology into a new playground for
> humanity, its new ecological habitat.
>
>>
>>How can ontologies help in improving upon the classical systems
>>engineering (already proven and successful) by adding means of
>>better
>>organization and retrieval of information, perhaps approaching
>>"understanding" of phenomena and processes better?
>
> In my view ontologies can only be truly helpful if introduced as
> a 'ferment' (so to speak) into the social reactor generating
> software today. The analog of  microorganisms that
> revolutionized chemistry and allowed mass production drugs by
> manipulating potent substances (like data we have today),
> shaping it into final form ready for consumption. Software
> factories of the future will use data as raw material and turn
> out 'food for thoughts'. Following the analogy - in oder to
> become a 'ferment' ontologies must be produced by the same
> ecological system, as opposed to labs (as was a case with drug
> production in a middle of last century). I know it all boils to
> 'bottom up vs. top down' approach. So the main question is how
> to produce ontologies 'in a wild' in your backyard?
>
>
>
> Len Yabloko, Owner/CEO
> Next Generation Software
> www.ontospace.net
>
>
>
>
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>    (011)


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