This was a heck of a weekend to lack email access! (01)
I have just waded through most of the messages and think I can summarize them
as follows. I have read lots of opinions, speculations, and personal experience
reports. I have seen very, very few statements I can classify as based on hard
data. Because something works for you or your organization does not mean it's
the best approach for everyone. Like John Sowa, I prefer editing HTML tags
(using Emacs, in my case) to using Microsoft Word. But I have many years of
experience, starting with nroff in the '70's, using non-WYSISYG approaches. I
don't claim (and neither did John, for the record), that everyone would be more
efficient if they edited HTML tags. To make that kind of claim, I'd need to
conduct a controlled experiment involving people who are experts in Word, in
HTML, and in both. And, of course, I'd want to know how much time people
generally require to become proficient in these technologies. I'd need that
knowledge to estimate how long an organization should expect to wait before it
begins to see a return on investment. Conducting this kind of experiment would
be both expensive and time-consuming. (02)
And so it is for the topics everyone's discussing. I have my own opinions on
whether IRIs should be human-readable, how ontologies should be partitioned,
the circumstances under which OWL is appropriate, etc., etc. My opinions are
based on habits I've developed after several years of writing ontologies in
collaboration with colleagues. They also derive from my experience with
software development and information modeling using other languages, such as
UML. I have participated in the creation of ontologies that others have used.
Clearly, the techniques I use work. I am not, repeat *NOT*, claiming they are
the most effective techniques possible. They work for me because I'm
comfortable with them. When you work with any technique for several years, you
become comfortable enough with it. Any engineer or craftsman knows that, and
knows the difficulty of switching. Will my techniques promote ontology reuse
(whatever that means)? I can only say that I have been able to use IRIs from
ontologies I've developed previously. Could I have done better at making my
ontologies more widely usable in a larger community? I have no evidence one way
or the other. And what I read in this weekend's letters didn't convince me that
anyone else has much evidence for their techniques. (03)
Please, everyone, show a little humility. All you software developers, remember
how it was a given that OO was the superior programming paradigm -- until
people actually started measuring? Let's cease all the unsupported claims. I
have no idea how the Chinese will react to ASCII IRIs. What's the basis for
your belief? I know, I know: We can't wait for the data. We have to try
something first. Just make sure you phrase your opinions as such. (04)
Steve Wartik (05)
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