Alex, and Max and John too, with later Ron Wheeler as well: (01)
Alex, you had written (also in response to John S): (02)
> Dear Max,
>
> thank you for very interesting article, but IMHO SemWeb is not
> about software engineering. It is about knowledge engineering.
> So it is not for programmers at all.
> And roughly say - it's forbidden for programmer to create
> ontology, as we just get another piece of code;) that what we
> really have now in many cases:) (03)
That is a very sharp comment. Most apt... (04)
So what needs to be added to ontologies so that they can be
relevant to software engineering, yet without bastardizing that
essence you so rightly insist on? Is any such supplementing or
complementing even possible, from your perhaps-too-purist point of
view? (05)
My own answers (as usual not so humble) are "Yes, and it's
realworld semantics"! Or "semantics + pragmatics", if you wish. (06)
That, with my expansion below, is also my answer to Ron Wheeler's
later follow-up to you: (07)
> Software Engineering is required if you actually want anything
> functional. Otherwise all you get is words which is what we
> mostly have now. (08)
But obviously those realworld semantics must be totally consistent
with and framed by the syntactic form, and formal or internal
semantics, of the ontologies themselves. (Though, please, I am
not trying to be mathematically formal or fully accurate with such
concepts as they might already be in use in some formal sense --
just bear with me here...) (09)
Now as it happens (of course...), that consistency requirement is
a good part of the restrictions on the "relationship methods" in
MACK (The Mainstream Architecture for Common Knowledge) which I
started introducing in the "4th instalment" of my present "MACK
basics" series of posts to this list. (And in particular, at this
paragraph in it:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-04/msg00109.html#nid022,
and continuing on to the end, later supplemented at
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-04/msg00112.html.) (010)
Thus the static or timeless nature of the basic MACK Form (as of
any ER diagram or any ontology) is given the dynamism of realworld
semantics by the way the relationship method mediates the
event-drivenness that the ER and ontology pictures lack. (011)
Then (of course again...) those comments are a good further
lead-in to the rather exorbitantly-long-promised 5th instalment,
with the subtitle "from simple elements to building applications"
which clearly concerns Software Engineering. That's where some
kind of orthogonality is a necessary aspect of compositionality of
systems of components, as the 5th instalment will indicate at some
length. (012)
((The much-regretted delay - getting on to 4 months now! - in that
instalment is due to the care I have been trying to take in
carefully projecting that part of the MACK picture. And - my
apologies! - I have had to let my day jobs intrude too. However,
my next paragraph below does apply strongly.)) (013)
For the coming 5th instalment I have elbowed caution aside and now
in advance ask your patience, as in it I am busy spelling out the
technical key to this "Ride The Mainstream!" project. I am trying
to show how that key is much more fundamentally significant than
that apparently-dreary slogan might seem to imply: it refers to
the core, the essence, the mainstream of the evolution of
cognitive life on Earth, evidently still so poorly exploited,
whether in presently-conventional Software Engineering, or in
ontologies as currently promoted, or in W3C-style Semantic Web
circles. (014)
Finally, Max and John, you will both see how the whole MACK
approach will tend to reinforce your criticisms of the present
Semantic Web and build on your suggestions. We shall indeed "Ride
The Mainstream!" together. The "Democratic Web" will indeed
improve how we "help people simplify complexity together." (015)
The technical details in the 5th instalment will show how those
words are not merely poor attempts at yet more demagogy. (016)
Christopher (017)
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