[topicmapmail] FW: [xfml] XFML as a Topic Map Application?

[Jan Algermissen]

David Steinberg wrote:
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Steinberg [mailto:davidsteinberg@rogers.com]
> Sent: June 4, 2002 5:48 PM
> To: xfml@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [xfml] XFML as a Topic Map Application?
> 
> How complicating would it be to recast as an application of the Topic Map
> Reference Model (see http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0298R1.htm)
> i.e. make it truly a Topic Maps Lite application?  

David--

this is an interesting idea and it is not at all complicated since XFML is
'just' another markup for topic map information. Basically it would be
a matter of writing a parser for XFML that 'extracts' the topic map information
and translates it into whatever the importing application needs. You could also
just tranform it to XTM that way. [1]

IMHO it is quite likely that diverse markup languages for topic maps
will emerge in the future that are optimized for certain areas of application.
If you dealt with taxonomies a lot, for example, you might be tempted to add
some sort of <subClassOf> element (much like <instanceOf>) to 'your' version of XTM
to simplify the authoring process.

If you are inetersted in these tranformations, you might want to look at my
attempt to map HTML that uses DC elements to the topic map graph.

( http://www.topicmapping.com/psi/dc/dc.html )

It would be straight forward to do this for other markup as well,
such as NewsML or NITF.

Hope that helps.

Jan


[1] Note that I am not talking about an XSLT tranformation!
    

-- 
Jan Algermissen
Consultant & Programmer

Tel:   ++49 (0)40 89 700 511
Fax:   ++49 (0)40 89 700 841 
Email: algermissen@acm.org
Web:   http://www.topicmapping.com