[sc34wg3] SAM 3.4.4 Reification and 3.4.5 Properties

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Luis J. Martinez
| 
| To me XTM, HyTM, and a standard API all have the same purpose. There
| are interfaces. 

I agree. This is also why I'm beginning to change my mind on SAM
conformance.  It's *not* an interface. There's no interoperability
there. XTM, HyTM, and the standard API can all use SAM to make sure
they are in sync, but that's different. That doesn't actually require
anyone to conform to the SAM.

| The fact that some information conforms to these interfaces doesn't
| not make the information a topic map. You can have hundreds of
| topics, all having the same subject, conforming to XTM but that does
| not make it a Topic Map. It is just an XML document. What makes it a
| topic map is being able to find all information about a subject at a
| single place. We should model that, not just interfaces.

I see what you mean. I'm not sure that modelling that actually means
anything, though. You can say "you must merge topics so that there is
only one topic for each subject", but that's only words. It doesn't
mean anything.
  
| from SAM - 4 Merging:
| "Merging is required to be performed in certain cases, but this is
| insufficient to guarantee that there will always be one topic per
| subject. Applications are therefore allowed to merge topics as they
| see fit."
| 
| If we can not specify that there should be one topic per subject, what
| are we standardizing? 

Well, Luis, here's the problem: how can you create a set of rules that
ensures that for all topic maps there always will be one topic per
subject? Look at the topic map below, for example. How many subjects
are there in it?

  [clark-kent : person = "Clark Kent"]
  [superman : person = "Superman"]

| I think the paragraph above is wrong. There is nothing special about
| having a set of classes, entities, items, whatever you want to call
| them, each with a set of properties. The semantics of how this
| "things" are managed is what is needed to process knowledge.

I agree completely. Which leaves me wondering what we disagree on. :)

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >