Re: ASSERTION, QUESTION, SUGGESTION

From: Jim Hendler (hendler@cs.umd.edu)
Date: 04/03/02


At 2:50 PM -0800 4/3/02, joe rockmore wrote:
>david brings up an excellent point, one that i have been asking 
>(mainly to mike dean) since the program start.  however, i think his 
>problem statement is not quite right, and his potential solution is 
>not what i would recommend.  i wouldn't state the problem as, "why 
>should i use DAML + OIL," but rather, "what does DAML + OIL provide 
>to me over XML + XML schema + RDF + RDF schema," i.e., over the web 
>languages already being developed and used.  and the solution of a 
>white paper, while valuable, in my opinion must be combined with a 
>short and to-the-point (e.g., one sentence) answer to the question.
>
>when i have asked various people variations on this question, i have 
>gotten long answers, good examples, language constructs in DAML + 
>OIL that are not in XML + ..., etc.  but what i have not gotten, and 
>i could seriously use in my current dealings, is a straightforward 
>and short explanation of the value added.  the scientific american 
>article, and many other documents, give great explanations of what 
>good the semantic web is, which the naive person (who, for instance, 
>only knows XML or HTML) buys, but the sophisticated person who knows 
>RDF and all the W3C work is harder to convince without this clear 
>value-added statement (especially if he is cynical or doesn't want 
>to be convinced, like the people i am dealing with now).  he can be 
>convinced with much more info, such as in the white paper david 
>suggests, but i still think a one-liner would be valuable to get him 
>to read the details.
>
>just my 2 cents.
>
>
>      ...joe

the minute someone sends me a (correct) 1 sentence answer to any of 
the following questions, I'll be happy to try to cons up an answer to 
the one above:
  1) WHat is the advantage of HTML when SGML exists?
  2) What is the advantage of XML when SGML exists?
  3) What is the advantage of XML over HTML?
  4) What is the advantage of using RDF?
  5) What is the advantage of using XML?
(ad infinitum)
   -Jim H.

-- 
Professor James Hendler				  hendler@cs.umd.edu
Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies	  301-405-2696
Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab.	  301-405-6707 (Fax)
AV Williams Building, Univ of Maryland		  College Park, MD 20742
http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler


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