[SCL] Issues and proposals (details)

[John F. Sowa]

Jim,

Of course that is true:

 > Viewed as a logical langauge, RDF is of course insufficient to be
 > everything - but of course it is not a logical language.  The key is
 > that the triples of RDF map to links on the web, so if you want to
 > embed things in the web, for real, instead of having a document
 > language, then you need something like this -- either use RDF or
 > invent your own competitor - you have to do it one way or the other...

There is no competition whatever between RDF and SCL or any of its
concrete syntaxes, such as KIF, CGIF, or whatever.

And SCL or any of its syntaxes do need to support namespaces.
There is also no question about that.  But those namespaces
can be supported very nicely within a very nice logic, which
can easily accommodate the full W3C naming conventions without
the inefficiency and ugliness of RDF.

 > sure, if your goal is clean documents and special purpose tools.

That is not the goal of SCL.  SCL is totally notation independent,
and it can just as easily support an ugly syntax as a clean one.			
 > if your goal is to expose the semantics and make it linkable, which is
 > what I care about, the language needs different features.

SCL defines semantics.  The URI's make it linkable.  There is no need
for a garbage syntax to expose semantics or to make anything linkable.

 > Some day some of the rest of you folks should learn what we really
 > mean by the Semantic Web -- I think Pat gets it, and the Sem Web is
 > profiting from his involvement.

I'm well aware of the semantic web.  It's that half-hearted, obsolescent
attempt to pay lip service to semantics by people who don't understand
semantics.

 > I will save this message so I can make you eat those words some day...

Great, we can dine together.  See the paper by Arun Majumdar and me on
what semantics really is:

    http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/tosi.htm

And this is not an academic paper.  VivoMind is our startup company,
which we have put together without VC funding (i.e., no dilution of
equity and no Vulture Capitalists to pay off).   Our funding has come
from real, live contracts from some very large clients who need
something more than RDF triples.

John