[topicmapmail] Expressive capabilities of Topic Maps

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Lars Marius Garshol
|
|  a) Topic maps never had a notion of "simple properties", so what did
|     you expect?

* jalgermissen@topicmapping.com
| 
| Seriously, I think it would be an enourmous limitation if Topic Maps
| could not store, say something simple as the age of persons in a
| simple way (as simple as with the entity relationship model).

I think internal occurrences are as simple as anything is likely to be
within topic maps. What is it you think is too complicated about them?
Are they difficult to use?
 
| Also, just because XTM has no facility for properties does not mean
| that Topic Maps are unable to provide one. 

In my mind internal occurrences are the facility provided by XTM and
topic maps for properties, and I'm not convinced that we need another.

| The Reference Model support simple properties, so why not use them?

Indeed. If you want to use them, feel free.
 
* Lars Marius Garshol
|
|  b) The data model draft says what the structure of a topic map is,
|     but *not* how to store it, so what the overhead of an occurrence
|     is depends on the implementation.
 
* jalgermissen@topicmapping.com
|
| I disagree. The current SAM draft recognises the is-ness of the
| relationship between a topic and the information 'that is relevant
| to the topic'. For simple properties I don't need that.

I agree you may not need to support reification of simple properties,
but what is the problem with the data model supporting that capability?
I don't see that it necessarily adds substantial overhead in any way.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >