ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] Programming Ontologies

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:39:48 -0500
Message-id: <491B3104.5050809@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Very helpful.
I will give this more thought before leaping into another form of 
documentation.
We are using ArgoUML rather than a more comprehensive program like 
Rational.
I am sure that we are not using this as well as we could.    (01)

There is a certain attraction about having an integrated RDF/OWL model 
of the domain that could be navigated by one or more tools.    (02)


Thanks for such a brief analysis that got the main issues out for 
consideration.    (03)

Ron    (04)

Mitch Harris wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 7:59 AM, Ron Wheeler
> <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>   
>> I am thinking about taking an ontological approach to documenting a
>> software package to help support the development team. My goal is to
>> make sure that it is easy to understand what each thing is and to be
>> sure that everyone has the same the meaning for each thing. The team is
>> multicultural and English is of questionable value for describing
>> relationships.
>>
>> 1)Is this a good idea?
>>
>> 2)I do not want to reinvent the wheel. Does anyone know where to find
>> "foundation" ontologies for
>> a) the Java language
>> b) SQL
>> c) Spring
>> d) Hibernate
>>     
>
> Before addressing your specific questions, I'll say something about
> your approach.
>
> Your class inheritance/use diagram, your database ER diagram/table
> schema, use-cases, and any other UML-like description of your
> design/code -are- your ontology (or part of it). OO classes and
> inheritance relations, classes and use relations, entities and (db
> key) relations, functions and calltrees are all parts of a formal
> specifications of your project. So laying out these UML things is
> definitely an ontological 'approach'.
>
> To your questions:
> 1) is this a good idea
>   - of course making your design explicit (in documents) is a good
> thing. Moving from narrative English language to a formal spec is a
> good thing  (of course beware the engineering disconnect between the
> thing (code) and the description (the explanation document) (javadocs
> and rational rose are good ways to deal with this).
>   - I may have redefined your question. maybe you have the idea that
> you can encode your software engineering process in RDF somehow, and
> that might be useful (I'm not sure how). If you want to share your
> design with others (well, within your set of developers) there's
> already a 'language' for that, your classic class and ER and other
> diagrams (suitably encoded).
>
> 2) 'foundation' ontologies for those 4 things? I'm not sure what this
> would get you. Java -libraries- have their copious javadocs, but for
> the language and those other three, any kind of ontology for them will
> be at the upper level, or rather, the meta level that you'll expect
> your developers to already be proficient in (whatever their natural
> language abilities).
>
> Maybe you want examples of ontologies for simple projects that -use-
> those four things.  For Java there's all sorts of examples with
> javadocs, with SQL and Hibernate you have your table schemas, for
> Spring...I don't know enough about it to say.
>
>
> So what I'm saying is is that your usual software design practices are
> already ontological (you've been speaking prose all along (or should
> be!)), but that any use of explicit ontology tools (Protege, RDF/OWL,
> URIs, SKOS, etc etc etc) will be more documentation (I think) than
> will be useful for a small in house project, when there are already
> formal description tools that you already use (table
> schemas/javadocs).
>
> Mitch
>  
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
> Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>  
>
>       (05)


_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (06)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>