David and John,
John wrote:
Bottom line: Anybody who claims that ontology
will make life simpler has an obligation to demonstrate that simplicity in any
tools they develop.
I couldn’t agree more
enthusiastically.
Here is a recently released patent I came
across that shows how to use multiple taxonomies to traverse multiple databases:
http://www.patent2pdf.com/pdf/07778993.pdf
Under the hood, it’s complicated,
but the interface could, in principle, be much easier to use on web searches
over “heterogeneous databases” as the specification describes them.
Whether that patent will be used to produce a simpler-to-use interface fore
SMEs, casual users, managers etc remains to be seen.
With that design, the SMEs and other users
need not be trained on the official ontologies underneath the various databases
– they only have to use the taxonomies to link multiple concepts in
different databases.
-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 sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 1:24
PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] How long to useful?
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