From: BW

To: Editor

Date: 2 Jul 2004

 

I've read a few articles from your site on XML.  I recently went to a talk on W3C semantic web services.  There's not much around that I can find that critiques this concept. Having read what you've written I have a lingering doubt that time would be better spent developing ontologies for use in database environments than for search engines looking at Web pages. Have you got an article examining semantic web services idea? 

 

You don't seem to have a search engine or index I could use to find something if there is anything.

 

 

From: Fabian Pascal

To: BW

 

Your sense is right.

 

People who talk about "semantic web" are of the same kind as those that came up with XML. They DK fundamentals, in fact they DK what meaning means and I don't believe they understand what they're talking about. They do not know that databases are all about meaning, that the best thing you can do is logic/math, and that anything else is sufficient neither for mechanized inferences, nor to guarantee their correctness.

 

Data management requires some organization (structure), integrity and manipulation. Any structure other than relations adds complexity for integrity and manipulation, but no additional power and, in fact, captures less user meaning. This is clearly explained in PRACTICAL DATABASE FOUNDATIONS paper #4, Un-muddling Modeling.

 

Ed. Note: This does not mean that web page searches exploiting more semantics are not useful, but rather that they cannot substitute for, or be equivalent to database management. “Standardizing semantics” across the web is wishful thinking.

 

[You can install one of the free search toolbars e.g. Google’s, at your end to search the site].

 

 

Posted 9/10/2004