Thinking Clearly .

I’m a big fan of Lambda the Ultimate. I like programming languages, especially the exotic ones. But I don’t think they do so well on Semantic Web. Mark Evans tries, but, for example, he just posted a presentation by Adrian “Lightweight Natural Language” Walker.

It could have sparked an interesting discussion if folks made the connection to the (much more easy to read than Internet Buisness Logic, to my eyes) HyperTalk or AppleScript.

Adrian and I had a little debate wherein I take a few pokes at the idea that explanations are necessary for causal web users and trusted knowledge driven web sites and Adiran’s NLP, e.g.,

“Lightweight English” has no positive, or, indeed, contentful association for me. Either the language is regimented, or it isn’t (or somewhat regimented). If it is executable, it will depart from English enough to belie (to my mind) any claim of lightweightedness. As the system gets large, the need for structure and (formalisitc) clarity seems to go up, not down.
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Again, consider today’s websites. More specifically, ecommerce sites. Though data and query heavy, I’d be very surprised if any significant fraction of them provided anything more than stack traces on crash by way of explanation. (Or similarly techie oriented explanation.) Why not?

(I do think explanations can be enormously useful, e.g., for debugging ontologies. I just don’t see any evidence that explanation is necessary for effective deployment of a wide range of applications. I really don’t think it’s necessary to expose them to end users often. In other words, the MYCIN argument is inconclusive.)

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