SEMIS Bulletin
The first issue of the Bulletin of the group for
Semantic Web and Information Systems (SEMIS) is
now available in PDF form:
http://www.sigsemis.org/newsletter/April2004/FINAL_AIS_SIGSEMIS_Bulletin_1_1_04_1_.pdf
As people may have noticed, I have been critical of
many things that are going on with the semantic web.
That is not because I am against the idea of the
semantic web, but because I am terrified of the
enormous amount of hype that is being dumped on
this technology, which is 30 years old.
I also have nothing against 30-year-old technology.
On the contrary, I strongly recommend many technologies
that are over a century old (e.g., first-order logic)
or over two millennia old (e.g., Aristotle). But what
bothers me about the semantic web is that people have
been pumping so much hot air into this balloon that
it will inevitably explode and end up tarnishing any
technology is remotely associated with word "semantics".
As an example of how things should be done, I suggest
the original World Wide Web, which Tim B. L. and a few
other people put together with a tiny amount of funding.
It grew quietly by spreading through the academic
community, and many other groups quietly experimented
with new function, many of which fell by the wayside,
while others, such as MOSAIC, grew into things like
Netscape, which revolutionized the way we use computers.
Just look at the contrast:
1. In 6 years time with ZERO hype and an insignificant
amount of funding, the WWW evolved from a couple
of lonely programmers to Netscape and the essential
features of what we see on the web today.
2. In 6 years (1998 to 2004) with ENORMOUS hype and
funding, the semantic web has evolved from Tim BL's
book to a few prototype applications, which are less
advanced than technologies of the 1970s such as SQL,
Prolog, and expert systems -- and they're doing it
with XML, which is far less advanced than LISP,
which was developed in the 1950s.
This contrast does not give me a warm, hopeful feeling
about the semantic web. I wish them luck, but I don't
want to be tarred with that brush.
John Sowa