[topicmapmail] A blog entry...

[Patrick Durusau]

Jan,

Jan Algermissen wrote:

>
> http://www.rtodd.com/blog/archives/2005/08/the_trouble_wit.htm
>
> Hmm....
>
> True/False?
>
Patently false.

Consider the line in the blog entry: "...topic maps work very hard to 
make something as simple as a book index into something complicated."

Anyone who thinks that a book index is "simple" obviously has not 
consulted the literature on book indexing or used a human authored 
index. A good index requires more than a little science and a good bit 
of art to construct.

I suspect the problem is that most people are accustomed to the hack 
work that passes for indexes in books these days, which are little more 
than computer generated full text indexes with some of the more common 
terms eliminated. That is not a good index.

Not only are topic maps attempting to provide a means to construct good 
indexes, but to also provide the ability to merge them together. That 
was the use case that gave rise to topic maps in the first place.

Granted there is far too much of the machinery showing at the moment and 
there does need to be the equivalent of HTML for topic maps.

Getting past the point where interfaces have a topic map "look" would be 
one step in the right direction. Authoring tools that are unlike the 
current crop of XML editors that are "in your face" with XML syntax 
would be another. Domain specific topic map syntaxes would not hurt 
either. Yes, that would have an impact on interchange, computers would 
be required to do the drone work of transforming between them. Better 
them than inflicting overly general syntaxes on users in the name of 
flexibility.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick


> Jan
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> _______________
> Jan Algermissen, Consultant & Programmer                         
> http://jalgermissen.com
> Tugboat Consulting, 'Applying Web technology to enterprise IT'   
> http://www.tugboat.de
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Patrick Durusau
Patrick@Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!