Rich -  (01)
On Feb 25, 2012, at 6:27 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:  (02)
> Ontology
> designers that produce a well documented, highly
> learnable and usable ontology (i.e., something
> simple and down in the details of a domain) could
> provide a satisfying brick to many of those first
> time developments.  (03) 
I am speaking in the context of the legacy software systems that 
enable our lives.  (04)
The language/lexicon/terminology/slang/whatever already exists in the 
applications. Unfortunately it's pretty much been put together with 
a single ended one-time pad... & that guy(s) has left the building.  (05)
The problem is, unless you have the SME sitting at your side, or lots 
& lots of time, the terminology is very difficult to grok. And when 
you move to the next assignment, the terminology/lexicon is very 
likely to be different, so you have to forget what you just spent 6 
months learning.  (06)
I would likely argue that this language collection has not been 
accumulated with the idea of an organized ontology in mind.  (07)
Imposing an organized ontology on this disorganized language 
collection probably isn't going be of much help.  (08)
But something that quickly shows or records or suggests that in a 
particular context "no" actually means "id" (e.g. soc_sec_no.... 
social security "number" is not a number, it's an index... a very 
different beast)... now that would be useful & likely to be embraced 
by the grunts預pplication owners, analysts, programmers擁n the trenches.  (09)
How ontologies could add value, I don't have a clue, since as far as 
I know it's a hard & fast ontological rule that requires a term to 
have a single definition/meaning... an extremely unrealistic 
constraint for this sort of ugly real world challenge. [If I've got 
this wrong, please set me straight.]  (010)
___________________
David Eddy
deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  (011)
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