[topicmapmail] Associating to an association

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Martin Stitt
| 
| Between these two concepts, there could be a "representing"
| association.  If that were done, the email should then be associated
| to that association.  I want to tie the resource to the idea that
| there is a representation type of activity going on between "topic
| maps" and "keywords".  I want to make an association to an
| association.

I see what you mean, and this is possible, but I wouldn't recommend
it. Modelling this as an association is relatively awkward, and
doesn't actually buy you anything. In my opinion it is better to just
do it this way:

  [topic-maps /* ... */]
  [keywords   /* ... */]
  [keywords-and-topicmaps /* ... */]
  is-compound-of(keywords-and-topicmaps : compound, topic-maps : part)  
  is-compound-of(keywords-and-topicmaps : compound, keywords : part)  

This does all you want and with a very simple structure. So you don't
actually need reification.

(Yeah, I use LTM notation here. It gets so difficult to discuss
modelling without being able to use examples that I just do it and
ignore the fact that people may not know LTM.)

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