[topicmapmail] Announcement of XML Schema for ISO 13250 Topic Maps

[Martin Bryan]

Patrick

> The point is that I would prefer that you state what objections you have
to XTM
> without name calling or assuming that "efficient enough for the long-term
> management of semantics" is a meaningful statement without more
information.

Good question.  See below for my detailed explanation.

I know I am being deliberately provocative at this point, in the hope of
causing certain people to rethink what I suspect are "fixed" ideas. I expect
to raise hackles, but I have a reason, after having worked with these guys
for almost a decade, to "go over the top". Sometimes its the only way to get
them to think while they "listen". Hopefully though I have done no "name
calling" - I have simply stated my objection to XTM being thought of as the
"only solution for XML-based topic maps" before this becomes the "holy
grail" of the topic map community.

The problem I have, as I stated volubally in Swindon before giving up trying
to get any of the developers to listen, is the long-term management of
"typing" of occurrences. When people start to create topic maps they will
almost certainly create a single type of occurrence, and will not assign
them roles. As time goes on and they try to relate their maps to other
peoples maps, they will begin to understand how vital roles are to
differentiating the reasons why occurrences were assigned to topic maps.
When we come to trying to use multiple maps as a single whole we will find
that there will increasingly be a need to restrict our queries based on the
reasons why specific occurrences were assigned to particular topics. (You
have only got to look at the web to see how vital the "reason for
publishing" data on any subject is.)

The same goes with facets. At first they seem totally a waste of time, but
when it comes to long-term research you will see how vital they are. You
will need to look carefully at any occurrences associated with the Topic Map
topic during September 1999 and January 2000 to understand why some of my
utterences now differ from some of those stated in 1998. Where do you get
the information needed to differentiate between occurrences made in these
two periods within a topic map? How will you be able to differentiate the
occurrences already recorded about my statements on the use of ISO 13250
(SGML) Topic Maps from those that are made about XML Schema for ISO 13250
Topic Maps? This is one of the weaknesses of XTM. Without a formal facet
handling mechanism you cannot make such distinctions and still be able to
find all occurrences of items relating to Topic Maps.

Now lets go back to the real problem. Try writing an XML Path based query
into an XTM representation of a topic map, and then try writing one based on
an XML Schema that uses role names as element names.
For my topic maps I have something like:

?Standard/Names/Acronym["RDF"]?GET?FormsBasisFor

For XTM I get something along the lines

?Topic/TopicNames/BaseName["RDF"]?GET?Occurs/Type["FormsBasisFor"]

OK not much apparent difference for such a simple query, and of course I
will be told that "tools will hide all this crap from users" again and
again. I don't care about what end-users see - I do care about how easy it
is for system administrators to work out what the problem really is when an
irate managing director is yelling down the phone asking why the answers the
stupid topic map engine returned were not the ones he expected to see, and
that the administrators job is on the line if the correct answers aren't in
the board room in 2 minutes. In such real life situations you need to
maximize the amount of real information available to the administrator. This
is where typed elements will come into their own - in those situations where
quick decisions are needed.

Martin Bryan