[topicmapmail] Choosing between association and reification
Kal Ahmed
kal@techquila.com
05 Apr 2003 16:43:02 +0100
Hi Ken,
My understanding of the different approaches you have used are that (A)
says "There is some sort of relationship between joinery, ubl-despadv
and a the UBL Despatch Advice formatting specification, where joinery
plays the role of the scenario, ubl-despadv plays the role of the
document type and the formatting specification UBL Despatch Advice plays
the role of the formatting specification."
(B) says that joinery and ubl-despadv are related by a "formatting
specification" relationship, and that the relationship itself is a thing
in its own right with a date and a related document.
My feeling is that (A) is somewhat confused as there is no sense that
the formatting specification is the "lead" role in the association -
this is based on my assumption that the formatting specification is a
document which says something about the relationship between a scenario
and a document type.
If it is the case that the formatting specification defines the
relationship between the scenario "joinery" and the doctype
"ubl-despadv", then reification would be a better approach, and I would
make the document UBL_FS_0p70_DespatchAdvice.html an occurrence of the
reified association as you have done. The date, however is really meta
data about the HTML document. To model that in the topic map, I would
add another topic that reifies the HTML document itself and put the meta
data there.
So this would mean that you end up with a bunch of associations between
scenarios and their related document type(s); each of which may have
(assuming it is reified) an associated resource which is the formatting
specification. Each formatting specification is itself reified to
specify the date on which it was last modified.
By doing this, you can separate the maintenance of meta data from the
maintenance of the associations between scenario and doctype. In fact,
you could even make these two separate topic maps - perhaps using XSLT
or connection to the document repository to provide up-to-date meta data
about the documents.
Cheers,
Kal
On Sat, 2003-04-05 at 01:18, G. Ken Holman wrote:
> Hi again, folks, I'm still plugging away with my UBL subcommittee topic map.
>
> I'm trying to decide how to map a given formatting specification for a
> particular document type in a given scenario.
>
> Below are two approaches, and I'm curious people's opinions on which way to go.
>
> Both have the formatting specification as a topic, because I need to talk
> about the formatting specification: what is its last changed date, and for
> each UBL release as a scope what the filename is for that release. I'm
> guessing that is an appropriate use for scope.
>
> (A) is a tripartite association where the three parties are the scenario,
> the document type and the formatting specification.
>
> (B) is a bipartite association where the formatting specification is the
> reification of the association.
>
> I can think of going either way when recording my 15 (so far) formatting
> specifications for the 7 document types and the 3 scenarios, and would be
> curious of pros and cons if anyone would be willing to share their opinions
> as to which of the two (or perhaps another!) way they would go. I'm trying
> to anticipate long-term maintenance benefits or problems: all three
> categories will be growing.
>
> Thanks for any help you can be!
>
> .................. Ken
>
>
> (A) - tripartite association
>
> <association id="fs-jda">
> <member>
> <roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#scenario"/>
> </roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#joinery"/>
> </member>
> <member>
> <roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#doctype"/>
> </roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#ubl-despadv"/>
> </member>
> <member>
> <roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#formspec"/>
> </roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#fs-jda-t"/>
> </member>
> </association>
> <topic id="fs-jda-t">
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#formspec"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <occurrence>
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#date"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <resourceData>2003-01-27</resourceData>
> </occurrence>
> <occurrence>
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#filename"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <scope>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#ubl-0p70"/>
> </scope>
> <resourceData>UBL_FS_0p70_DespatchAdvice.html</resourceData>
> </occurrence>
> </topic>
>
> (B) Reified bipartite association
>
> <association id="fs-jda">
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#formspec"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <member>
> <roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#scenario"/>
> </roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#joinery"/>
> </member>
> <member>
> <roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#doctype"/>
> </roleSpec>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#ubl-despadv"/>
> </member>
> </association>
> <topic id="fs-jda-t">
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#formspec"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <subjectIdentity>
> <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="#fs-jda"/>
> </subjectIdentity>
> <occurrence>
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#date"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <scope>
> <topicRef
> <resourceData>2003-01-27</resourceData>
> </occurrence>
> <occurrence>
> <instanceOf>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#filename"/>
> </instanceOf>
> <scope>
> <topicRef xlink:href="#ubl-0p70"/>
> </scope>
> <resourceData>UBL_FS_0p70_DespatchAdvice.html</resourceData>
> </occurrence>
> </topic>
>
>
> --
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> - Europe (XSL-FO): May 16, 2003
> - (XSLT/XPath and/or XSL-FO) North America: June 16-20, 2003
>
> G. Ken Holman mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
> Crane Softwrights Ltd. http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/t/
> Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0 +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995)
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