[topicmapmail] Any design guidelines for roletyping?

[Thomas B. Passin]

[Marc de Graauw]
>
> My question: is it preferable to use approach 1 only, or approach 2?
Approach
> 1 seems to make it easier to build user interfaces, since we could make a
user
> interface which allows only topics of type 'composer' to be used as the
> 'composer' role in in the composed-by association. If I want to do that
with
> approach 2, I need to record somewhere which topic types are eligible as
> 'wife' in the 'marriage' association. On the other hand, playing a role in
an
> association and being a topic of a certain type seem different things, so
> mixing the two seems wrong. Is mixing the two approaches harmless or is it
> better to avoid this?
>
> Does anyone have any design guidelines they follow themselves?
>

I use topics that are intended only for use as role types - your approach 2.
I think that is the only sensible approach in almost all cases (perhaps
there are exceptions, I have not thought about them much so far).  A topic
that represents a role type can, of course, be a subject of discourse
itself, so that you can say thing about it, have it be part of an ontology,
etc.

Cheers,

Tom P