On Sep 10, 2013, at 9:22 AM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
software languages are tools and data is like material.
Agreed... raw material(s) + tool(s) = finished good(s).
and of course one man's "finished good" (a car door) is the next guys raw material/sub component for the ultimate car.
when data representation formats determine the existence of non existence of semantics.
I've had "discussions" over Zip Code & Postal code... many people would claim they are different. I argue that within the context of a business & its mail room they're actually pretty much the "same"—kinda like?, sorta like?, almost like?, very similar to?—thing... rather like how water & ice are the "same." Same thing... different form.
But obviously from the viewpoint of the DBA trying to keep databases running, there's a different story.
my reference to conflating RDF/XML and Semantics.
As long as I'm not in CSAIL, I typically offer that the dirty little secret of the SW is there's no Semantics.
Actually caught TBL lowering the "semantics" marketing flag in an IAP class & admitting the SW is really about LOD... leaving, as always the semantics to be invisibly implicit. Ready & waiting to be interpreted differently by the next person who opens the crypt.