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Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Hans Polzer" <hpolzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:23:03 -0500
Message-id: <018801ccf7d8$57a68830$06f39890$@verizon.net>

Rich,

 

My main point, and the main point of the paper I attached in last night’s email is that an entity that has to do a lot of data conversions/mappings in a domain can afford to invest in ontology development in that domain and is motivated to do so to reduce the cost of each additional mapping by automating as much of the mapping process as possible and minimizing the amount of human intervention required to produce YAIMM (yet another information model mapping). An individual system owner will typically find it expedient to do a simple data element to data element mapping with as few data elements as possible – the minimum needed to get the job done, and as quickly as possible. Investing in learning about semantic technology and developing and evolving an ontology looks like high investment/low return prospect to a single system manager unless that manager does in fact anticipate having to do this many more times. Even then, the issue of justifying the investment still is a big obstacle if that single system manager is funded one new interface project at a time. Certainly many of the organizations I am familiar with have challenges in justifying and obtaining funding for developing solutions that transcend the immediate problem and promise return only after multiple future iterations – often to be executed under someone else’s watch (and budget).  But if my business model is doing mappings among heterogeneous entities, the economics of ontology development and technology development to leverage that ontology, for example, as a canonical intermediate data model for that general domain in my middleware component architecture or data brokering service, make such an investment a lot easier to justify. And I can continue to invest as both the domain and the implementation technologies continue to evolve over time, sensing changes in the environment and developing adaptations that an individual system owner is unlikely to encounter except by happenstance. Put differently, the individual system owner is not very motivated to look for trouble at the margin. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. Someone with a business model focused on supporting adaptations is actually motivated to look for markets requiring new adaptations.

 

Hans

 

Hans

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 12:22 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

Dear Hans,

 

You wrote:

But Rich, the economics are different for single system owners/managers, which is why there is a market for data import/export middleware and data adaptor providers and for third party data integrators/aggregators.

 

It seems to me that the market for middleware providers and integrators is based on labor, tools and training which these providers have honed through repeated use.  An occasional export project by the single owner doesn’t provide as much experience, and therefore doesn’t get the same learning advantage.  But I think you are pointing out something related to ontology; I just don’t quite get your point yet. 

 

I don’t follow what you mean by “the economics are different for single system owners”.  Perhaps you mean that the single system owner doesn’t export/import as often, therefore doesn’t have the honed skill set among its staff.  Is that what you meant?

 

If so, I still hold that the cost of hiring the export/import contractor is a one time thing and simple tuning of one export/import project is usually enough for the second project. 

 

Look at Orbitz and Travelocity, and the fact that they haven’t eliminated individual hotel, airline, or rental car web sites/services, but still make money and have a significant segment of the market.

 

Sorry, I am not familiar with either of those sites.  Perhaps you mean that they handle importing travel info of various types and exporting travel commitments of various types.  Certainly there are other examples.  AutoByTel and Dealix both interface with car dealerships and provide a shopping service to prospective car buyers.  But how is this related to ontology?  I am still missing your intended point. 

 

Yet we have Southwest declaring in its ads that you can only buy a Southwest ticket from Southwest as a discriminator!!

 

Southwest doesn’t sell through Orbitz or Travelocity?  Since I let my daughter book my travel arrangements, and I avoid traveling as much as possible, I’m not aware of this.  But I suppose it’s because the discounts Orbitz and Travelocity want in exchange for leads are too high.  Just a guess, but again I don’t see the connection with ontology.  Please explain a little more. 

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

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From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hans Polzer
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 9:01 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

But Rich, the economics are different for single system owners/managers, which is why there is a market for data import/export middleware and data adaptor providers and for third party data integrators/aggregators. Look at Orbitz and Travelocity, and the fact that they haven’t eliminated individual hotel, airline, or rental car web sites/services, but still make money and have a significant segment of the market. Yet we have Southwest declaring in its ads that you can only buy a Southwest ticket from Southwest as a discriminator!!

 

Hans

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:40 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

Dear Matthew,

 

You are saying that, since it is too expensive to do for 1+1 systems, lets do it for thousands?  That’s like saying lets lose a little money on each sale, but make it up in volume!

 

My experience is that if one DB is programmed to export data to company X, then that same export will be considered when a second company Y has to be fed data.  The incremental cost of adding a new export routine is only paid once, and the format of the export becomes the standard.  There is no need to do it differently for the next company, for the most part. 

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

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From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 12:17 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

Dear Rich,

 

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. 

 

MW: I probably would not do it for just one system to one other system either. But how about for some hundreds of systems to some hundreds of other systems, where each system interfaces to on average 10 other systems. Oh, and it is not just one company that you are doing this for, but a whole industry. Much of the problem is supply chain related, where data is transferred e,g, from equipment suppliers to design contractors, to construction contractors, to owner operators, to maintenance contractors, to decommissioning contractors. Does each party in that chain want to have a bespoke way of exchanging information with each other party, or is it better to have one way to communicate?

 

How many times do you want to solve the same problem before you try to look for a shared solution?

 

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. 

 

MW: What the ontology gives you  is a shared language that each system can translate into and out of, rather than having a distinct way to do it for each pair of system and company.

 

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.

 

 

 

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

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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

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.

 

 

 

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

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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.

 

 


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