[topicmapmail] ANN: TMAPI 1.0 alpha release

[Kal Ahmed]

On Sat, 2004-04-10 at 09:07, Steve Pepper wrote:
> Kal,
> 
> This is excellent news. Thanks for the work you have put
> into TMAPI - I think it is going to be of great benefit to
> the whole TM community.
> 
Thanks! It was very much a team effort to get this far and I would like
to thank everyone that contributed (both committers and commentators on
the list).

> I have one question (as a non-Java programmer :-)
> 
> As I recall, earlier versions of TMAPI were heavily influenced
> by the XTM syntax and included terms like "member", which are
> not considered to be part of the underlying Topic Maps Data
> Model.[1] From a quick glance it seems that you have tidied up
> all of this and now follow the TMDM much more closely.
> 
> Can you confirm that that is the case? I think it's very
> important that TMAPI is completely syntax-independent. Too
> many people confuse the syntax with the underlying model as
> it is!
> 

The team developing the API discussed this issue for a long time - there
are arguments both for and against using the TMDM names and for and
against using the XTM names. In favour of using XTM names are
familiarity and an easy mental mapping from syntax to code (which I
think is the route that most programmers take). In favour of TMDM names
is that other syntaxes (e.g. LTM, AsTMa) are not marginalised by the
API, and the ability to make use of the work already done in ISO 13250-2
and -3 in terms of mapping XTM syntax to the data model.

In the end, the decision was made to follow TMDM and hence the API was
reworked to use TMDM names - AFAIK we do not deviate from TMDM naming at
all (modulo any future changes to ISO 13250-2 :-)

Its also important to note that TMDM's data model is also closely
reflected in TMAPI - for example the AssociationRole interface allows
only a single value for the player property, in line with TMDM rather
than XTM syntax.

Of course, the other good thing about going down this route is that
hopefully we will be in a good position to map TM[C|Q]L constructs
(assuming that those standards make use of TMDM) into future modules of
TMAPI.

Cheers,

Kal
-- 
Kal Ahmed, Techquila
Standards-based Information Management
e: kal@techquila.com
w: www.techquila.com
p: +44 7968 529531