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John,
While I agree with many of the points you make, by contrast I believe
that far too many computer scientists are *not helping* to build the
web. It is in fact the predominance of computer scientist that has
contributed to the shaping of many of the limitations of the current SW
I think there is widespread agreement that more contributions from
information scientists would be advisable,
I can only hope that the money will be administered transparently and
wisely, and thru public open consultations
to make sure it does not get wasted like much of the SW research money
has been wasted in financing dubious and pointless projects
to date
PDM
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 2:35 PM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Pavithra
and Cameron,
I am strongly in favor of support for universities.
But at the
same time that the Brits dumped that money on the
institute for
"web science", they were taking money away from many
talented
professors, who were working in other areas of computer
science,
logic, linguistics, and related fields.
PK> But when
government spends money on educational institute
> and scientific research, it is never a waste. In fact, it
is
> a vested in interest in humanity...
I agree
that governments waste much more money in ways that
are often much less
productive. But if they're giving money
to universities, they could
get better productivity by funding
30 separate projects than one large
institute that is isolated
from the computer science
departments.
CR> For me, its not about whether or not to invest in
R&D...
> clearly we need to do this. Rather, its about what to
invest in.
Yes. My major complaint about the Semantic Web
has been that it
is *isolated* from the mainstream of software design,
development,
and use. Putting it in a separate institute just makes
it even
more isolated. That is a terrible step in the wrong
direction.
Following is an excerpt from a note I sent to an email
list for
the OMG. It explains in more detail why I believe that
this
institute is
counterproductive.
John
________________________________________________________________
Since
I have been working with ontologies, I'd like to make some
remarks that
distinguish the directions I have recommended from
what has been done
with the Semantic Web.
As I said before, my major complaint about the
Semantic Web is
that it was "too provincial". They completely
ignored the half
century of work on software design, development, and
specification
that had been funded by income from actual money-making
products.
When Tim B-L published his book, commercial web sites,
large and
small, were built around a relational database, and UML was
the
most widely used notation for specifying software. If the
W3C
had designed their tools and notations in a way that could
take
advantage of that work and extend it further, the Semantic
Web
would have become a unifying force for integrating all
software
design and development.
Instead, they ignored everything
that was done before, and took
some ideas that the AI community had
pioneered in the 1970s.
There were some useful commercial applications of
those ideas
in the 1980s, but they weren't widely adopted -- partly
because
they were isolated from the mainstream of commercial IT.
Instead
of integrating those ideas with the mainstream, the SW kept
them
isolated. And -- surprise, surprise -- they're still not
widely
adopted today.
The point I make about semantics is that it
cuts across every
aspect of system design, development, and use. It
has the
potential for unifying all those aspects. But you can't
unify
anything if you put it in an isolated compartment that
is
separate from the things you're trying to unify.
I worked in R
& D for 30 years at IBM, which had an outstanding
research
"division". Unfortunately, being a division kept it
divided from
the divisions that developed products. That is
one reason why IBM
had a reputation for being in the forefront
of every major development in
computer science and technology,
but usually *second* in the actual
deployment of the technology.
That is why I believe it is hopelessly
counterproductive to
put "web science" into an isolated institute where
it further
reduces its contact with both universities and
industry.
John Sowa
--
Paola Di
Maio
**************************************************
“Logic will get
you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert
Einstein
**************************************************
--
Paola Di
Maio
**************************************************
“Logic will get
you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert
Einstein
**************************************************
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