[sc34wg3] Alignment of N0396 with N0393

[Jan Algermissen]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> 
> * Jan Algermissen
> |
> | The alignment of N0396 with N0393 is now online at
> | http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmmm/TMSM-1.3/TMSM-1.3.html
> 
> My first question about this document is how it is intended to be
> used. Is it just a rough draft showing a first attempt at a SAM-RM
> mapping that is intended to live together with SAM and RM, or is it
> intended as a replacement for N0396? Clarification on this would be
> welcome.

Well, it shows the approach to be taken for expressing the ontological
commitments of N0396 in terms of N0393.
> 
> On reviewing the document a number of shortcomings become apparent.
> Some are simple bugs (like the definition of the 'text' data type),
> others are omissions, and a last category is more subtle. I think it's
> clear that the simple bugs can easily be fixed, and it would seem that
> the omissions can also be handled (though I'm not too sure). The last
> category I am not sure the RM can handle at all.

Certainly the document is not 'ready' but it's sole purpose is clarification.

> 
> The omissions are obvious, and some are even stated in the document.
> The TMA leaves out the PSIs for variant names, the
> unique-characteristic PSI, as well as variant names. These should be
> added once the author has time to do so.
> 
> The subtle problem is that the merging rules are wrong. Subject
> identifiers and source locators share a namespace, 

Oh, what does that mean?

> but this is not
> modelled. Further, base names are here merged if they have the same
> string value, 

They are not. Why do you think so.

What do you mean by 'base name'? The name(-string) or the naming characteristic?



> even if their scopes, types, and parent topics are
> different. Finally, I can see no indication that duplicate topic
> characteristics are removed as they ought to be.

N0393 handles that completely (equal assertions are merged).

> What is much worse is that I am not convinced that the RM as it
> currently stands can overcome these problems. 

Well, it surely can but in our conversation we figured out already that the
prose of N0393 is not clear enough for a number of people to understand how. 

> So in order to
> conclusively prove that the SAM can be modelled in the RM this would
> have to be corrected.
> 
> SAM associations are also modelled as RM assertions, despite the fact
> that these are structured differently, 

Why are N0396 associations structured differently from N0393 assertions?

> and there are some other warts.

Which?


> How serious these are is difficult to judge.
> 
> Another subtle problem is that a number of things that are handled by
> the infoset formalism in the SAM is done by prose in the RM, 

Which ones?


> which in
> my opinion is not good, and it also seems to indicate that the RM as a
> formalism is less suited than the infoset is.

"seems to indicate..." ??

> 
> This would also seem to be borne out by the fact that this document is
> much less understandable than the SAM is. 
>
> Back in 2001 when we were
> discussing suitable formalisms for modelling topic maps I proposed
> using EXPRESS, an existing and very suitable ISO standard, but was
> told that however suitable it might be the problem was that most
> people did not know it, so it would not communicate well. The RM
> suffers even more from this, of course.

The prose of N0393 may be unclear, but I don't see how the infoset
formalism is more clear that a property based model?
> 
> The RM only adds value over and above the infoset if it simplifies the
> expression of the SAM. To me it seems obvious that rather than
> simplifying the SAM it considerably complicates the modelling of it.


So do you think that a 15+ pages document is less complicated than a
3 pages XML doocument (that can evetually even be processed by software)?

....

The draft alignment contains a suggestion for a slight modification of
the model in N0396 in order to reduce the complexity of that model. I'd
be curious what you think about this proposed change.

....


Thanks for your review.


Jan
> --
> Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
> GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >
> 
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-- 
Jan Algermissen                           http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer	                  http://www.gooseworks.org