[Biodevelopers] XML Standardization?

[Alex Milowski]

On Friday, January 10, 2003, at 02:03 PM, Joe Landman wrote:

>   There are Ontologies projects which are trying to keep naming
> consistent across organisms.  The information needed in each
> sub-discipline is subtly different.  There are overall efforts within
> specific groups such as MicroArrays (MGED) and others.  However the
> vocabularies to help define the data structures properly needs to 
> follow
> from a common set of agreed upon terms (hence the ontologies issues).
>

So, what about type libraries?  With the advent of XML Schema 
(something I had
some involvement in), it would seem that common schema type libraries 
across common
areas would be very helpful.

Most of the efforts that I see out there use DTDs.   That seems rather 
restricting
for the complexity of data being described.

Basically, naming efforts, while a good thing, aren't enough.

This still doesn't address the coordination issues.  There are 
organizations like
OASIS (see http://www.oasis-open.org) which have the structure to allow 
standardization
of vocabularies.  Although, while I'm a fan of standardized 
vocabularies, that needs to
come after some success with using them.  That is, you can't 
standardize a vocabulary
until you have one that has some evidence of functioning.

Alex Milowski                FAX: (707) 598-7649                        
  alex at milowski.com

"The excellence of grammar as a guide is proportional to the paucity of 
the
inflexions, i.e. to the degree of analysis effected by the language
considered."

Bertrand Russell in a footnote of Principles of Mathematics