FW: [topicmapmail] Reference to Topic Maps

Sun Jun 10 21:37:41 EDT 2007

Hello all,

I wanted to add my 2 cents on this subject but (ironically enough) my
email was blocked at the list (presumably due to its HTML content).
Here's the email again, this time in plain text. 

===

Stian I just wanted to add a 'me too' on your question. When writing
about topic maps it can be a really challenge to find a good, definitive
site to refer people to, especially when it comes to a url for "the
official standard".

This wasn't always the case. Once upon a time the site
http://topicmaps.org/ was pretty much 'the' site when to refer to when
it came to an "official topic maps standard" - and it was a beautifully
simple and easy to reference as a definitive document.

It is a shame that does not appear to be the case any more. Perhaps
those folks working hard in the thick of the trees and churning out all
these great updated standards don't realise how confusing its getting
for us folks outside the forest. 

I'll first attempt to answer Stian's original question (again). I
*think*, that the answer is that there are actually lots of standards
right now and, well, I think this excerpt from Alex Johannesen's weblog
sums things up quite nicely...

<quote>

There's a few things to say about Topic Maps in itself. The first is a
choice between using the Topic Maps DataModel (TMDM)
<http://www.isotopicmaps.org/sam/sam-model/>  vs. the Topic Maps
Reference Model (TMRM) <http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmrm/> ... The TMRM
is an abstract layer above the TMDM, and in fact you can define the TMDM
in it, so it's a good candidate for doing serious work, albeit it's not
as widely supported as the TMDM. In this case, it shouldn't matter too
much as I'll be using it to define a version of the TMDM to stay
compatible with XTM (1.0 <http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/>  and 2.0
<http://www.isotopicmaps.org/sam/sam-xtm/> ).

</quote>

The problem is, the above is just a blog post and not a defintive
sounding URL to which you can direct people looking for 'the' standard.

I'll admit that, like Stian, I spent quite some time trying to work out
what *the* next standard for "topicmaps" (after XTM 1) was (and for
precisely the same reason). With sincere apologies to the good people
who've work on this, I really must point that I found it really hard to
work it all out. The http://isotopicmaps.org site was not particularly
helpful to me. For instance, the "guide to topicmap standardardization"
(from 2002) is linked fairly prominently from the front page but it does
appear to be out of date. There are all sorts of links to confusing (to
me) places and no prominent links to what Alex described as 'XTM 1' and
no direct link to 'XTM 2' either. All this stuff about "IEC
JTC1/SC34/WG3 working group of SC34 <http://www.jtc1sc34.org/>  (which
itself is a subcommittee of Joint Technical Committee 1
<http://www.jtc1.org/>  of the ISO"..  well, it just is not helping me
learn what I need to know. Perhaps I am wrong but it does seem like the
classic anti-pattern where an IA structure reflects the structure (and
internal politics) of the community/organisation that created it,
instead of being designed from the start to make sense to the most
people most likely to use it.

Perhaps Isotopicmaps.org can never be that definitive page, for various
reason, but a something that clearly explains the above (and more) and
*simply and cleanly* links to the most *current* and most actively used
standards, would in my opinion do wonders for the continued expansion of
'topic maps' as a standard. Having it sit at a nice defintive sounding
URL like topicmaps.org would help too!

--

Let me emphasize this point by comparing the HTML standard(s) to email
and its standard(s).

Used to be that if there was only one thing all parties in the
web-developer/HTML/browser-developer community could agree on it was
which URL constituted "the official" "current" standard, and what was
the 'next generation' / 'last' etc. If they often disagreed on the
details of implmentation at least everybody knew what URL to be sure to
include in their email if they wanted to back up their point about
'standards compliance' or lack thereof.  (Sadly with the
ever-proliferating list of standards 'about' HTML coming from the W3C
this has begun to get more and more confusing)

Conversely, consider that its just about impossible to find a single
*definitive* website address that has "the official standard" for email.
I mean, sure, we got email standards. We got lots of standards! And its
really confusing. It is very hard to hit someone over the head with a
'you don't support *the* email standard' email. You might think that the
issue here is 'competing' email standards - but in actual fact whilst
that happens a little, all these different email = standards have
different release dates and they very often address different aspects of
email in complex and interlocking ways that kinda fit together.
Unfortunately it all seems to make the most sense to the folks drafing
the standard but steadily less and less sense to folks outside the
forest if you will.

Despite the years of incomplete implementations and constantly updating
standards the reality is that 'standards compliant' html bandwagon has
finally taken off, and in fact we are seeing that pay off now with some
solid implementations not just from Mozilla and Opera but Microsoft too.
As a web developer its much easier to write 'to the standard'. But when
it comes to creating email, well - "forget about it". Its notoriously
difficult to rely on email to get through or to look as intended, in
practice you end up falling back to trying to guess what the most
'common practices' are and that means guessing what the lowest common
denominator is, and reading various standards as a guide rather than a
rule. It alost means falling back to least common demoninators (ie you
can't assume that there is support for even the most rudimentary links
"in email" even in 2007.

My point, is that that the 'topic maps' community appears to be heading
in the direction of proliferating email standards instead of learning
the lesson of the relatively succesful HTML 4 standards push. Clearly
there are good reasons for multiple 'topic maps' standards addressing
different aspects, but at the very least can we please have a single,
definitve url with a clear and concise explanation of what is what?
Something actually aimed at the wider 'oh yeah so what is 'topicmaps'
maybe I should support it' people instead of the internal working groups
people. Whether that should be isotopicmaps.org, topicmaps.org or
topicmaps-themovie.com I don't really care, but in case it helps I just
want to say that 'hey its confusing out here'!

If anybody understands the value of (*at least one* though possibly
more) definitive URI's on a single *human* concept (ie topicmaps) it
should be us topic maps people, no?	

My 3 cents, anyway. 

Thanks. 

Miles

 > -----Original Message-----
> From: topicmapmail-bounces at infoloom.com
> [mailto:topicmapmail-bounces at infoloom.com] On Behalf Of Stian Lavik
> Sent: Friday, 25 May 2007 9:26 p.m.
> To: topicmapmail at infoloom.com
> Subject: Re: [topicmapmail] Reference to Topic Maps
>
> Thank you for the swift reply.
>
> I agree with you completely and I frequently use those.
> However, in terms of pointing to Topic Maps, the official
> standard, the overview with access to the standards documents
> (technical stuff, models, XTM- syntax, etc.). This can be
> useful as a reference e.g. when comparing TM with other
> standards or similar situations. The reader can then choose
> for himself to what level he wants to dig in to the matter. 
> But I want to be able to point to *the* official TM site. It
> doesn't seem that iso.org has a collective page for all the
> parts of the TM standards. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>
>
> Stian
>
>
> On 25. mai 2007, at 11:11, Trond Karl Pettersen wrote:
>
> > Hi Stian,
> >
> > Depending on the target audience, I believe that some or all of the
> > texts listed below may be better suited than the standard itself
> > (giving a general overview of the concept, that is):
> >
> > The TAO of Topic Maps
> > http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tao.html
> >
> > Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps!
> > http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tm-vs-thesauri.html
> >
> > What Are Topic Maps
> > http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/09/11/topicmaps.html
> >
> > An Introduction to Topic Maps
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/
> > dnmaj/h
> > tml/Jour5Intro.asp
> >
> >
> > Also, www.topicmap.com has aggregated a fair collection of TM-
> > resources, if that's what you're looking for.
> >
> >
> > -Trond K. Pettersen
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: topicmapmail-bounces at infoloom.com
> > [mailto:topicmapmail-bounces at infoloom.com] On Behalf Of Stian Lavik
> > Sent: 25. mai 2007 10:11
> > To: topicmapmail at infoloom.com
> > Subject: [topicmapmail] Reference to Topic Maps
> >
> > Hi all!
> >
> > For some time, I've been having a challenge when writing about Topic
> > Maps; What is a good website to refer people to when
> talking about TM
> > in general? Is there a one site that is *the* starting point for all
> > the official standards, models, etc.? I've been using the
> > isotopicmaps.org site. Is that still "valid" to refer people to when
> > pointing to Topic Maps in general?
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stian Lavik
> > _______________________________________________
> > topicmapmail mailing list
> > topicmapmail at infoloom.com
> > http://www.infoloom.com/mailman/listinfo/topicmapmail
>
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