[topicmapmail] Reasons why variant is recursive, and is this really necessary?

[Paul Goldstein]

I'm curious about what people think about the recursive nature of the 
variant element, and I'm wondering if this is really necessary in Topic 
Maps. I'm not disputing that it has a purpose, only that it seems 
unlikely to be used much. Also, since its the only such recursive 
structure its seems like sort of a blemish on the topic map spec, and 
ads some complexity to developing APIs, etc for TMs.

Can anyone give me some good examples of where having a variant inside a 
variant inside a variant, etc might be useful? How many people have used 
variant recursively like this in their TMs?

Thanks.

Paul G.

-- 
Paul Goldstein
Senior Systems Developer
Time Inc.
212-522-0565
pgoldstein@timeinc.net