[topicmapmail] occurrence abuse ?

[Jan Algermissen]

Steve Pepper wrote:

> Jan, I believe your feeling that this is an abuse is probably due
> to your judgement being clouded by the "everything-is-a-topic"
> view promoted by TMPM4 (now thankfully substantially moderated in
> the Reference Model drafts). 

No, my concern was not about the question if things like phone numbers
should be 'made topics' [1] or not. My concern was about misusing the 
semantics of the assertion type 'occurrence'.

> Everything is *not* a topic; only those
> things are topics that the topic map author wants to make assertions
> about. In most applications, the only useful thing you might want
> to assert about a phone number is its owner. Does that justify
> making it a topic? Not really: that information can equally well be
> expressed by making the phone number an occurrence of the owner
> and be done with it.

Hhmm, is a resource being an occurrence of a certain topic sufficient
for expressing ownership between a person and it's phone-number ?
Where should we put that information ?
> 
> So why make things more complicated than they need to be?

I am not so sure If I know how complicated things need to be, I am just
wondering if using occurrences that way is the original intention of XTM
specs or if it is just the only way to go ?

A question: If the use of <resourceData> was possible inside <member>, we
could easily establish associations between topics and inline data WITHOUT
using the semantics of 'occurrence' at all. It would just be a matter of
using an appropriate association type. And this would also avoid the
'creation of topics' [1].

> 
> In the case of a date, I often ask the question, how many events am I
> in general likely to want to associate with dates of this type in this
> application? If the answer is "usually, at most one", then I would
> express the date as a typed occurrence of whatever event it pertains
> to, rather than creating a new topic and using an association.

But then, isn't the markup syntax the driving force behind this decision ?
What if the markup would make another way more convenient ?
(Apologies if this sounds rude, I don't mean to be)

> 
> Put another way: A topic is a nexus for information about a given
> subject. If you know that you are only going to have one piece of
> information for topics of a certain type (say, phone numbers), then
> it's worth considering whether you can get by without creating
> topics for those things at all.

But what if 'we all' start exchanging our maps ?



Jan


[1] By 'making a topic' I mean: abstracting away from the mere resource,
for example by making the resource a subject indicator of the created topic.


> Steve
> 
> --
> Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
> Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
> Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
> http://www.ontopia.net/ phone: +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246
> 
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-- 
Jan Algermissen
Consultant & Programmer

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