[xtm-wg] An Approach to the Semantic Web

[scott.tsao@boeing.com]

I was intrigued by a recent article on "Building a Semantic Web Site" 
(http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/05/02/semanticwebsite.html).  This is 
the first article I have read that gives fair and equal treatment to 
RDF and XTM.  (Are there any other that I missed?)  As a potential 
implementor and user of those SW technologies, I am not as interested 
in exactly HOW to use those technologies, as to WHAT is the business 
scenarios the author had in mind (examples in French did not help 
much ;-).  Therefore, I would hope the author could provide a sequel 
to this article outlining the scenarios (or use cases) one could 
follow when accessing his Semantic Web Site.

Assuming we do have these scenarios (or use cases), one could then 
ask this question:  WHICH technology can best solve the problem at 
hand (perhaps by stepping through the use cases)?  The impression I 
got while reading the article was ... it depends ... one could use 
either RDF or XTM in most of the cases.  For RDF, the benefit may 
come from the fact that RSS is RDF-compliant, and there are existing 
tools available for queries.  For XTM, the benefit may come from the 
easiness for semantic discovery and enrichment (e.g., discovering 
topics and adding associations).  And, as we expand on the scenarios, 
we could probably find areas that neither RDF nor XTM fit the bill.  
Then perhaps we would resort to some other technologies (e.g., 
DAML+OIL) to get to where we want to be.

What I am proposing here is to look at those "SW technologies" 
through a different lens, not from the technologist's perspective, 
but from the end-user's perspective.  I think the myriad SW-related 
articles flooding our screens today are mostly from the former, but 
very few from the latter.  I would encourage people continue to write 
SW-related articles, but preferably following this outline:
1. What is the business problem?
2. What is the proposed business solution? (senarios and use cases)
3. What are the potential technical approaches?
4. Which technical solution works best and why?
5. How can the proposed technical solution be developed and 
implemented?
6. What are the available standards and tools (if any)?

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Scott Tsao
The Boeing Company


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