[topicmapmail] Any design guidelines for roletyping?

[Marc de Graauw]

* Robert Barta

| I think it is better to avoid it, although in some places it is
| EXTREMELY difficult to come up with a good role name. Types are an
| easy way out.


* Thomas B. Passin

| Agreed, but it is still a naming issue rather than a fundamental modeling
| one.  I have started to make all my role topics types have lower-case names
| , and topic type names  (that is, topics I expect to be used primarily as
| types) as upper case.  Then I can distinguish them at once (and avoid
| name-based merging) even if the core word is the same.  This practice seems
| to be working well so far.

It was naming which triggered this issue for me in the first place - sometimes
the same name (i.e. 'student' or 'composer') seems the natural choice for
topic type as well as role type. Your approach with upper- and lowercase is
useful, but doesn't something like this confuse users? Will they understand
the difference between 'STUDENT' and 'student' topics? (In spite of this
criticism, I think I will follow your convention.)

Marc