[sc34wg3] occurrence - basename fuzzy boarder

[Martin Bryan]

Geir Ove asked
> * Martin Bryan
> | Re (on the IRC chat line): the reason is that i've never really
understood
> | the reason why basenames and occurrence have to be different.
> |
> | The main reason for the difference was the merging and TNC: Base names
could
> | be merged, occurrences couldn't.
>
> That's ok, but I still don't understand why they need to have
> different structures.
>
> | Once you had split out base names it made sense to put the other
> | naming things, related to variant (view specific) display and
> | sorting, within the same area (topicname) rather than within the
> | other occurrences.
>
> Why do you consider variants as being restricted to topic names? In my
> opinion is has to do with rendition of information resources in
> general - not just names. Occurrences are renderable in the same way
> names are, and I believe the Topic Maps standard should allow this.

What we did not want was merging of occurrences. While there may be a case
for variant displays for occurrences, and perhaps even for sorting rules for
occurrences, we did not find a use case for them at the time of writing the
standard so only allowed them for names, where the use cases were clear.

> IMO occurrences and basenames should have the same structure. This
> includes occurrences having variants, basenames having type and
> basenames having locators. Whether they should be separate item types in
> SAM or not I'm not entirely sure about. Keeping them as two item types
> is probably ok.

I think you probably have to keep them as two item types, if only because
the names will need to be displayed before the occurrences are in many
applications.

Martin