[topicmapmail] Regarding Facets

[Murray Altheim]

Guy Murphy wrote:
> Hiyas.
> 
> I understand that from the angle you approach topicmaps the syntax is an
> incidental detail, buy from many other angles of approach the syntax is
> pretty damn crucial. It's of particular concern is determining who adopts
> topicmaps.
> 
>     <occurrence>
>       <instanceOf><topicRef xlink:ref="#dateOfBirth"/></instanceOf>
>       <resourceData>1953-03-18</resourceData>
>     </occurrence>
> 
> Compaired to..
> 
>     <property name="dateOfBirth" value="1953-03-18" />
> 
> ...will have a profound impact on who says "not for me". This is apart from
> the fact that one is easier to use in practice that the other.

Only if you still live in the days of hand-editing markup. There's
little performance benefit and your proposal is quite limiting in
its simplicity.

The benefit of the existing syntax is that it takes advantage of the
Topic Map paradigm, in that characterizing the property as such is
only one of many things that can be done with it, whereas <property>
is only "property". And if we fleshed out the syntax with all of
the innumerable domain-based possibilities, the syntax wouldn't be
so *simple* as it is (i.e, so few elements, so explicitly-defined).

One needs to separate aesthetic disagreement with a syntax style
from its functionality. Within a topic map application it's likely
you'd even *see* the syntax. Hopefully not.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

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