Dear Matthew,
Thanks for the description of the example
nuclear reactor. But I still question the value of adding the task of making
an ontology, instead of just exporting data from a thirty year old system
without the ontology step.
In general, when I have to move data from
one system to another, I just move the SQL tables, columns, domains (where
compatible), views and (where necessary) stored procedures. Why would it
be useful to first define an ontology for that thirty year old system?
What benefits would the company get from adding that apparently unnecessary
task to the activity of moving data from one system to another? If there
is no benefit, no company would include it. So in your example, there has
to be some benefit above and beyond data transfer. Could you please
explain what benefit it might be to add the ontology task to taking data and/or
software from a thirty year old reactor? You must have something in mind,
but I am not following the rationale just yet.
Moving data from one RDBMS to another is
just not that hard. The problem is in understanding the data that people
have actually typed into the database over the last thirty years. Different
people put in different text descriptions all the time.
An ontology would have to enforce strong
data typing of columns to be able to do any inference, but the data typing is
just not there in thirty year old systems. Furthermore, adding that
strong type checking at the data entry point is, for most systems, not
productive use of labor, and in many cases, makes performance so sluggish as to
impact the systems fitness for use.
Thanks for keeping at it though; I really
am trying to find some value in compensation for the cost of constructing the
ontology before transferring data. I just don’t follow that
argument yet. It doesn’t fit my experience with systems, whether
legacy or new. Please continue to explain it.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West
Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
2:20 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?
Dear Rich,
The problem is not
working on 30 year old code. That probably stopped years ago, and the software
would have been abandoned if it did not work, so it is of sufficient quality
doing something rather mundane, that it does not need working on. The problem is
how do you get the data out of this system and into the systems you need to
decommission and deconstruct your nuclear reactor? How would you know how to
interpret anything you could get out? The same would apply if you were going to
replace the software of course.
You are not trying
to tack ontologies on top. Unless you had developed an ontology 30 years ago,
you would not have captured the semantics of the system outside the heads of
those that did the development, so you would not have access to those semantics.
So you need to develop an ontology of a system so that at some later date
you can make use of the data in ways that were not anticipated when the system
was built.
Regards
Matthew
West
Information
Junction
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880185
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From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: 29 February 2012 19:03
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?
Dear Matthew,
My advice to anyone working on programs
that were written thirty years ago is to find another job. The technology
is outdated, the tools have become much, much better, languages are more
expressive, and subsystems can be licensed far more effectively now. My
advice to managers who have a thirty year old software system of significant
size is to muddle along as best they can while building an entirely new
replacement using modern technology.
The only value in creaking along with
thirty year old technology is in hoping it will go away soon and be replaced by
something more functional.
In any case, the sunk cost of that 30 year
old project has no current value other than avoiding replacement costs.
So why try to tack ontologies on top of something with a very limited
lifespan? I see ontologies, if they have a place at all, as newly
emerging solutions to yet unidentified problems. Our concern should be to
identify exactly which kinds of problems can be solved with ontologies.
Only then will they have clear value.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West
Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
10:48 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?
Dear Rich,
My experience in software development in
teams is that the vocabulary used is absolutely essential to the two
programmers discussing their current issue of interfacing with each
other. Whether other programmers use the same word or not isn’t
significant to them; they are not writing programs to be readable until
possibly after the said programs actually work. So the problem is already
solved before any ontology is used, dictated, or agreed to. Then
there’s time to adjust words to fit some manager’s choice of
vocabulary, but that is AFTER the problem of a working program has already been
solved.
And what about the
situation when program A was written 30 years ago to support a nuclear power
plant, the writer of which has since died, and the writer of the second
programme now has to write interfaces to programs needed to decommission that
nuclear power plant over the next 20 years.
Regards
Matthew
West
Information
Junction
Tel: +44 1489
880185
Mobile: +44 750
3385279
Skype:
dr.matthew.west
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
This email
originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and
Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office:
2 Brookside, Meadow Way,
Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire,
SG6 3JE.