[sc34wg3] A new idea for the Topic Maps standard

[Steven R. Newcomb]

"Anthony B. Coates" <abcoates@TheOffice.net> writes:

> I would think that the existence of a complete
> mapping from xxxML to SAM *or* XTM would qualify
> xxxML as a "Topic Map compatible ML".  Mind you, you
> could use that to make almost any ML "Topic Map
> compatible", but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad
> thing.

That would be a very good thing, I think.

The question that most interests me is: On what basis
could such a mapping be made, and how would that basis
me made explicit?

It seems to me that Topic Maps are all about "merging".
Merging means creating a situation in which there is
exactly one topic per subject -- i.e., recognizing when
two different topics have the same subject, and then
merging them.

So, when creating a mapping between different markup
languages, we must begin by understanding the subjects
that are expressed, referenced, and implied by the
syntactic constructs that appear in instances of such
languages.  We must also explicitly say how to
recognize whenever instances of such markup languages
are expressing, referencing, or implying the same
subject.

If we can't do that, we can't merge the topics (which
may or may not be marked up as <topic>s) that are
expressed, referenced, and implied by various markup
languages.  (And if we can't merge topics, we're not
doing topic maps.)

-- Steve

Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant
srn@coolheads.com

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