[topicmapmail] Why Topic Maps (a collaborative effort)

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Kal Ahmed
| 
| There is something else which I think that many of us on this list
| often lose sight of. That is that the topic map paradigm is
| incredibly simple and intuitive. Things with names and resources;
| and relationships between things.  With all the discussion of PSIs
| and formal models and expressing logic systems (all good stuff,
| don't get me wrong on that), it is easy to forget how easy topic
| maps are to use. ;-)

I would like to emphasize this. I think this is one of the things that
really separates topic maps from RDF. When people look at an RDF model
where there is no clear separation between abstract resources and
information resources and everything is labelled with URIs it's kind
of hard for them to grasp.

In comparison, the topic map model with a distinction into topics and
occurrences (and subject indicators vs subject resources[1]), is much
clearer and easier to understand and apply. At least, that is my
experience. 

[1] Subject constituting resources. Or whatever we will call them in
    the end.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
ISO SC34/WG3, OASIS GeoLang TC        <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >