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Re: [ontolog-forum] End of the line for triple stores

To: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx, "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Mills Davis <mdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:32:33 EST
Message-id: <4a686671.d4d3.0@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Kingsley,    (01)

I certainly agree with that point:    (02)

KI> You **shouldn't**  need a data center the size of an
> airport to play ball on the Web :-)    (03)

There are many applications for which a triple store is useful,
and there is no reason why applications that don't have huge
data requirements can't use them.    (04)

But the main point I was making is that the ANSI/SPARC approach
to the conceptual schema from 1978 was correct:  the logical
view of data should *not* be tied to a particular technology.    (05)

The idea of triples for RDF and OWL was justified by the
claim that triple stores are efficient.  But that is a
short-sighted view that ignores the following point, which
I repeat from my previous note:    (06)

JFS> There is always somebody with a bright idea just around
> the corner who will find an even better algorithm.  The
> fundamental principle is that you should never distort your
> logical view to fit a specific physical representation.    (07)

KI> Virtuoso is a multi-model DBMS engine.  And when it comes
> to MapReduce we believe and can prove that the hybrid
> approach is better.  
>
> MapReduce disregards DBMS technology innovations
> inappropriately, and the Linked Data Web is how some of this
> will ultimately crystallize.    (08)

I'm happy to concede the point that there are better
technologies than MapReduce.  Stonebreaker also believes that
the Googlers ignored the latest DBMS technologies that make
relational DBs run circles around MapReduce.    (09)

But my main point is that there will always be better
technologies of all varieties, and the idea of tailoring
the logical view to any particular physical implementation
is a bad idea.    (010)

However, I recognize that there are many people who have
invested a lot of time, effort, and money in the current
versions of the SemWeb.  Therefore, any new version should be
upward compatible, so that the current implementations can
interoperate indefinitely with whatever new versions come out.    (011)

But I strongly believe that the new versions should finally
take to heart the wisdom of Knuth and others from the '60s:    (012)

1. Premature optimization is the root of all evil.    (013)

2. There will always be a better algorithm that will outperform
   anything that anybody is doing today.    (014)

John Sowa    (015)

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