What are the life and breath of the web?

• Simplicity: keep it simple, stupid!
• Modular design: read https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Modularity.html later

It is also necessary to realize that your own system, no matter how big and wonderful it seems now, should always be designed to be a part of another larger system.

• Tolerance: this principle can be contentious. When browsers are lax about what they expect, the system works better but also it encourages laxness on the part of web page writers.

• Decentralization: if we make a knowledge representation system which requires anyone who uses the concept of "automobile" to use the term "http://www.kr.org/stds/industry/automobile" then we restrict the set of uses of the system to those for whom this particular formulation of what an automobile is works.

• Test of Independent Invention: designing a system to be a part of an as-yet unspecified larger system

• Principle of Least Power: The reason for this is that the less powerful the language, the more you can do with the data stored in that language. The Semantic Web is an attempt, largely, to map large quantities of existing data onto a common language so that the data can be analyzed in ways never dreamed of by its creators.