[sc34wg3] SAM-issue psi-generics (was: SAM-issue term-scope-def)

[Nikita Ogievetsky]

Lars,

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | So as long as topic "marc" does not represent a topic, and I say
> | 
> |   [marc : topic = "Marc de Graauw"
> |    @"http://www.marcdegraauw.com/aboutme_eng.htm"]
> | 
> | I would be claiming that you are a topic, right?
> 
> * Nikita Ogievetsky
> | 
> | You would be claiming that in the scope of the authored by you topic
> | map document Marc represented a subject worth talking about and
> | worth spending your precious time on creating a topic element :-)
> 
> I'm afraid you're not picking up the context, Nikitia. (Or else I am
> misunderstanding you, which is definitely possible. :)

Let me try again.

What I am saying is that the fact that an author decided to make 
a topic proxy for a subject can be lost if "marc : topic" is replaced
with simply "marc".
So topic here is similar to DAML "thing".

> We are discussing the 
> 
>   <URL: http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/core.xtm#topic >
> 
> published subject from the XTM 1.0 specification, and whether it is
> broken or not. The issue is that topics and subjects are not the same,
> and instances of this class are clearly topics, but that people, for
> example, clearly are not topics, but subjects.

So, I am a subject? Hmmm...  
I think that a subject is a mental proxy for an individual.
And a topic is a computer proxy for a subject.
So I am neither a subject nor a topic.
However my subject is an instance of a subject
and my topic is an instance of a topic.

> According to the definition of that published subject the topic above
> is equivalent to this topic
> 
>   [marc = "Marc de Graauw"
>    @"http://www.marcdegraauw.com/aboutme_eng.htm"]
> 
> since this published subject defines the default class of topics. As I
> see it, that just can't be right.
> 
> So the question is: what do we do? Do we drop this published subject
> from the new ISO 13250, or do we retain it. If we retain it, then we
> have to write the SAM definition so that any topic that doesn't have
> a defined class will be an instance of this class.
>  
> | So I do not think that this is such an easy decision.  
> 
> I don't think it's trivial, either. That's why we have a formal issue
> for it and a discussion about it.

To illustrate that class topic make sense,
imagine a QA API for XTM. When you QA engine encounters
a topic element it understands that you are saying:

- I want to talk about a topic.
q - Which id should we use to refer to this topic?
a - mark.
q - Does mark have names?
a - Yes
q - List please
a - "Marc de Graauw"
q - Any scope on it?
a - no
q - next name please
a - no more names
q - any resources identify mark's subject?
a - Yes
q - List please
a - http://www.marcdegraauw.com/aboutme_eng.htm
q - next please
a - that was it actually
...
 

--Nikita