Re: [ontolog-forum] How long to useful?

[Adrian Walker <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John & All,

Interesting discussion.  I'd add this.

If a design and mock-up looks as though it will be easy to use, that sometimes gets conflated with "easy to implement", even though it may in fact require research breakthroughs for what's inside the black box.  

I had a colleague at Bell Labs who consistently refused to give time and cost estimates for software projects.  That was then.  Anybody know an organization that would live with  that now?  

                           Cheers,  -- Adrian

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Adrian Walker
Reengineering

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 4:24 PM, <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David,

> And I would offer that whatever it is of value you can produce must
> be put into the hands of end-users who have essentially no interest
> at all in ontology. What you've produced—whatever it is—must make
> their job easier...

I agree.  But I would add that this principle applies equally well to everybody involved -- including subject matter experts (SMEs) and application developers.

You can't expect SMEs, such as physicians or geologists, to take a training course in your system before they can use it to do anything useful. 

You can expect programmers to look at a description of the API for your system -- but only if it is written in terms of the programming language they are already using, not in terms of some notation you hope they will learn.

Bottom line:  Anybody who claims that ontology will make life simpler has an obligation to demonstrate that simplicity in any tools they develop.

John

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