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In my work for creating CTM documents as a means to collect information
in an ad-hoc manner, I almost always want to write down the source of
the information I got. I do it like this:<br>
<blockquote>john<br>
- "John Lennon"<br>
works_for({the_beatles<br>
- "The Beatles"<br>
isa music_group<br>
})<br>
died_in(new_york) ~{?
source_resource(<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>)
}<br>
</blockquote>
Verbally, this means:<br>
<blockquote>John Lennon, who worked for the music group "The Beatles",
died in New York, according to the resource
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>.</blockquote>
Now try to convert this to one of the recent CTM notations:<br>
<blockquote>john<br>
- "John Lennon"<br>
works_for(the_beatles)<br>
died_in(new_york) ~random_topic_654166<br>
<br>
the_beatles<br>
- "The Beatles"<br>
isa music_group<br>
<br>
random_topic_654166<br>
source_resource(<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>)<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
I think the latter notation (be it pre- or post-Kyoto) has certain
disadvantages:<br>
<ol>
<li>It takes 11 lines instead of 7 lines while providing not more
information.</li>
<li>
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It is harder (and takes longer) to read in human language (at least in
my languages). In this sequence, it would read like “John Lennon worked
for The Beatles and died in New York. The Beatles is a music group.
That John Lennon died in New York, this is according to the resource
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm">"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm"</a>.
<style type="text/css">!--
@page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm }
TD P { margin-bottom: 0cm }
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }
-</style>”
</li>
<li>It forces the author to invent an ad-hoc random, but unique,
topic identifier, while the topic identifier is of no meaning or
purpose for the author. Being forced to generate a unique topic
identifier is quite a hard task. It takes longer then devising a
password. Try to devise a password nobody would be able to guess, and
then ensure that it is different from all the other passwords you have.<br>
</li>
<li>Information belonging semantically closely together is spread
out. This makes the document less readable, less changeable and harder
to understand its meaning. This effect is even worse when having
multiple sources of information for one topic.</li>
</ol>
<br>
This is why I would like to have subordinate clauses in CTM. For me,
having subordinate clauses or not in CTM makes a difference like having
closures in a programming language or not. However, I do not care about
the exact syntax.<br>
<br>
I see that others have the same idea:<br>
<ul>
<li>Robert Barta wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:20080129152705.GA3931@mando.int.devc.at"
type="cite">[...]
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">N3 is a good example of how nesting can help to define complex
structures in a compact form without additional mechanism for
templates.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I agree, and that is also where AsTMa= is going. Effectively,
everywhere where a topic id is allowed, a fully-fledged topic
definition can be.</pre>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>Dmitry wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CFE6FB3-0117-1000-D4BF-130ADAE86FAC-Webmail-10023@mac.com"
type="cite">[...]<br>
<pre wrap="">I would prefer it this way:
paul
~ o:Paul_McCartney;
# <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://....#Paul_McCartney"><http://....#Paul_McCartney></a>;
- "Paul McCartney";
first_name - "Paul";
last_name - "McCartney";
isa person, musician;
o:works-for [o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles], o:The-Wings;
o:homepage <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www..."><http://www...></a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
Note the “[o:The-Beatles - "The Beatles]” (which, by the way, has an
unmatched double-quote, it should read as “[o:The-Beatles - "The
Beatles"]” I suppose). Apparently, the “[o:The-Beatles - "The
Beatles"]” is a subordinate clause, that is, a reference to a topic
while explaining a little bit about that topic.<br>
</li>
</ul>
Do you think that having subordinate clauses in CTM is a good thing?<br>
<br>
ciao,<br>
<br>
Xuân.<br>
<br>
P.S.: Note that this is no proposal in favor of a "{}" vs. "." syntax.<br>
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