Just a Flesh Wound

Black Knight

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: None shall pass without formally defining the ontological meta-semantic thingies of their domain something-or-others!

HACKER: What?

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: None shall pass without using all sorts of semantic meta-meta-meta-stuff that we will invent Real Soon Now!

HACKER: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must get my work done on the Web. Stand aside!

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: None shall find anything on the Internet without semantic metadata!

HACKER: So be it!

HACKER and SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Aaah!, hiyaah!, etc.

[HACKER chops the SEMANTIC KNIGHT's first argument off by building efficent statistical/heuristic search engines]

HACKER: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: 'Tis but a scratch.

HACKER: A scratch? Your argument has been cut off!

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: No, it isn't.

HACKER: Well, what's that, then?

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: I've had worse. None shall have an effective syndication network without RDF Site Summaries!

[clang]

Hiyaah!

[clang]

Aaaaaaaah!

[HACKER chops the SEMANTIC KNIGHT's second argument off by building the blogs/RSS/Aggregators/Bloglines/etc. network ]

HACKER: Victory is mine!

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Have at you!

[kick]

HACKER: Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Oh, had enough, eh?

HACKER: Look, you stupid &^%$# You've got no arguments left.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Yes, I have.

HACKER: Look!

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Just a flesh wound.

[kick]

HACKER: Look, stop that.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: You won't be able to get machine-machine services without an ontology to formally describe all the relationships!

[kick]

HACKER: Right!

[whop]

[HACKER chops the SEMANTIC KNIGHT's third argument off by building SOAPy and RESTful services with only implicit semantic descriptions]

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Right. I'll do you for that!

HACKER: You'll what?

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Come here!

HACKER: What are you going to do, bleed on me?

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: I'm invincible!

HACKER: You're a looney.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: The SEMANTIC Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then. I have an battalion of KR theorists on my side!

[whop]

[HACKER chops the SEMANTIC KNIGHT's last argument off with an army of actual code writers]

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Oh? All right, we'll call it a draw.

HACKER: Come on, folks, let's go.

SEMANTIC KNIGHT: Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow ^&^%$s! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!

Michael Champion, xml-dev list