 Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
started 8/11/2003; 7:20:36 AM - last post 8/14/2003; 2:53:44 PM
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Ehud Lamm - Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF 
8/11/2003; 7:20:36 AM (reads: 1523, responses: 10)
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| Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF |
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If the RDF folks have really solved the symbol grounding problem, I'm all ears. I'll never turn down a free lunch! If the claim is, more modestly, that RDF gives us a common processing model for content -- a Content Virtual Machine -- then I will assert a counter-claim. XML is a kind of Content Virtual Machine too, and XPath, XQuery, and SQL/XML are examples of unifying processing models.
Quite a few of our favorite topics appear in this long weblog item from Jon Udell. It is amusing (and vindicating) to see just how badly needed is programming language and linguistic insight for the debates going on in the XML world. And to think people assumed XML is going to free us from languages...
It would be especially interesting to here Patrick's recation Jon's comments, as well as his views on the general issues involved.
Posted to xml by Ehud Lamm on 8/11/03; 7:23:48 AM
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Patrick Logan - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/11/2003; 8:46:27 AM (reads: 829, responses: 1)
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I think Jon's on top of it. I like the ideas behind his "Plain Old Metadata" and I like his statement...
If the RDF folks have really solved the symbol grounding problem, I'm all ears. I'll never turn down a free lunch! If the claim is, more modestly, that RDF gives us a common processing model for content -- a Content Virtual Machine -- then I will assert a counter-claim. XML is a kind of Content Virtual Machine too, and XPath, XQuery, and SQL/XML are examples of unifying processing models. As we move into the realm of extensible aggregators we'll face the same old issues of platform support and code mobility. Nothing new there.
XML tools are, as he says, data management tools. They know nothing about what that data "means" a priori.
Now that XML is nearly here for every programmer and manager, they will sooner rather than later, realize the truth. Journalists will have to find something else to write about!
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Ehud Lamm - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/11/2003; 8:55:16 AM (reads: 869, responses: 0)
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Would you consider XSLT (and other mechanisms the enable code mobility) to raise radically different issues than "plain" XML? [Consider, for example, XSLT-aware aggregators that don't simply expose the fields in an RSS file, but first transform the file according to a transformation linked from the RSS feed itself]
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Patrick Logan - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/11/2003; 1:32:17 PM (reads: 785, responses: 2)
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I don't see *radically* different issues. But that may be in the eye of the beholder. Do you have anything in mind?
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Tim Sweeney - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/11/2003; 5:07:46 PM (reads: 765, responses: 0)
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Does anyone else see XML as an overcomplicated solution the meager problem of serializing data in and out of text files?
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Florian Hars - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/11/2003; 10:44:19 PM (reads: 724, responses: 0)
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Ehud Lamm - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/12/2003; 12:12:15 AM (reads: 746, responses: 1)
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Not really. I am not following this deabte carefully, so I wanted to make sure I am not missing anything.
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Ehud Lamm - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/12/2003; 7:26:46 AM (reads: 729, responses: 0)
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Tim brings some common sense to the discussion.
One thing I would have added: semantics (what markup means, for example) is embodied in what tools ("virtual machines" if you prefer) do with the syntax.
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Patrick Logan - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/12/2003; 8:16:09 AM (reads: 658, responses: 0)
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Tim Bray is essentially concurring with Udell...
This should not be surprising, because at this point in history, only a few decades into the quest for intelligent machines, semantics is something that humans do.
But as Udell points out in his weblog today, there is a lot of misunderstanding being generated by XML leaders that somehow semantics is something the machines can do on their own.
Tim Bray is apparently not one of them, but Tim B-L is and has more general name recognition and a more visible platform than Bray.
This discussion in the public forums is good and timely. Could it have happened sooner, yes but probably not likely.
Now Inforworld readers are going to (have a chance to) understand the symbol grounding problem.
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Ehud Lamm - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/14/2003; 1:30:59 PM (reads: 538, responses: 0)
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Patrick Logan - Re: Udell: Symbol grounding, XML, and RDF
8/14/2003; 2:53:44 PM (reads: 519, responses: 0)
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I think Windley hits the right notes. Two nits to pick...
When we use <dc:creator/>, we use it in a context where dc has been grounded by referencing a URL....
They potentially ensure that when we see a element we can tell if its the same element as the one with the same name in another document.
This use of "grounded" is unfortunate because it is really "semi-identified" and not "grounded in meaning" as used to describe the symbol grounding problem per se.
And I say "semi-identified" rather than "fully identified" because there is absolutely nothing to prevent you and I from using the same symbol and name space to identify two different symbols. i.e. you may no nothing of mine, and vice-versa.
We should not do that, because we should not refer to the same namespace. But there is nothing to prevent it.
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