• From: Mike.Champion@S...
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 09:11:04 -0500

Paul Tchistopolskii [paul@q...] said:

>
> So UNIX, C, Google, Perl are  'worse is better' ... OK ...
> we should also admit that the Web ( HTTP + HTML + CGI )
> is no doubt the same 'worse is better'.  Right?

> I don't think The Semantic Web smells like 'worse is better'.
> Does it ? If Semantic Web is 'worse is better', the prototype
> of it should be very easy  to implement.

Yup, that's the point I was trying to make, in far fewer words.
Either the SW is "worse is better" and we should be seeing useful
prototypes by now, or it will have to be "much, much better" than
what we have now to justify the kinds of costs that it will require.

I also appreciated your clarification of how Google works, and noting
the fact that a big challenge of search engines is to *ignore* misleading
and self-serving metadata.  I was concerned that there is insufficient
economic incentive for individual sites keeping their metadata/logic bases
complete and accurate; your analysis suggests a DIS-incentive for accuracy and consistency. Self-serving metadata designed to lure the unwary

to a site (think of the RDF equivalent of "it's a floor wax ... it's a dessert topping") is an annoyance to humans but will totally defeat a logic processor that depends on the consistency of its input assertions and can't jump outside its frame of reference to re-orient itself (I'm vaguely remembering GOEDEL, ESCHER, BACH here).

So, not only does the "semantic web" as envisioned by Mr. Berners-Lee and others require profound philosophical breathroughs to define a universal ontology and  profound software engineering breakthroughs to develop easy-to-use, ontology-aware metadata editors built seamlessly into authoring tools (and logic engines built into web clients and servers).... it will require either a worldwide Ministry of Truth to keep people from cheating with their metadata or a new economic model that makes cheating not pay.

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