SUO: RE: Re: W3C approves RDF and OWL
> Danny and Philippe,
>
> The W3C defines the URI naming scheme and XML as a prerequisite
> for everything they do. Therefore, it is a tautology that
> they would be a prerequisite for a WWW ontology language.
The web does depend on URIs and the HTTP protocol, though it's a bit blurry
around HTML/XHTML/XML, so it's not far off a tautology. But on a point of
information, URIs are defined in an IETF RFC, and the web isn't controlled
by the W3C, in this context they merely make recommendations. Tim
Berners-Lee may have influenced their direction somewhat, being the inventor
of the web, director of the W3C and a leading exponent of RDF and the
Semantic Web.
> However, I agree with Philippe that very good ontology tools
> and languages can be developed without using XML or XSLT.
Without a doubt.
> From what has been done so far, I don't see any evidence
> for the claim that tools based on XML and XSLT will ever
> reach the level of sophistication of the AI tools of the
> 1970s. Perhaps they might. But I'm not holding my breath.
Hmm, that "based" is a bit leading - XML is just a standardised way of
structuring character data, XSLT a convenient (though potentially powerful)
tool for manipulating it. You might as well talk of the 1970's tools being
based on plain text or binary. But I'm certain that tools that *use* XML
(and quite possibly XSLT) will go far beyond the sophistication of the AI
tools of the 1970's, if they haven't already done so. Having a web to work
on should be a big help.
Cheers,
Danny.