[sc34wg3] Topic Maps land and SAM land

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Nikita Ogievetsky
| 
| If you read my messages again, I was only trying to say that SAM API
| (not necessarily the SAM in the form that it exists now, but SAM
| 4.7, or whatever) is the most convenient one for TAO Topic Maps
| (sorry, Martin, it is just very convenient to say this way).

I guess you by "SAM API" mean "SAM-based implementations"?

| Also note that SAM tools are by definition RM tools - so I do not
| understand the distinction.

The two models are different. Either you implement the SAM model, or
you implement the RM model. If the OKS is an RM tool, then Excel,
Notepad, and Apache are also RM tools.
 
| Oops, I am not an RM person. I am an RM&SAM person.

I wasn't primarily thinking of you, actually, but when I thought I saw
you repeating the same (in my opinion) incorrect statement I could no
longer resist correcting it. Sorry if I fired at the wrong person.

| (Talking about names: I used to work with an Indian guy whose name
| was Ramasami :-))

LOL!

Good thing he's not part of the TM community, or we would have had to
abandon both RM and SAM as names, I think. :)

| [mapping existing data to topic maps]
| 
| Excellent! Surprisingly I have also done this for leaving (and I
| liked it).

Yeah, it's a lot of fun, and I guess it's not so surprising that we've
both done it. I'd expect a large percentage of TM-based projects to
need this.
 
* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| So I would really like to know what basis people have for claiming
| that the RM simplifies anything in this regard. Have you even done
| this, or are these claims simply conjecture?
 
* Nikita Ogievetsky
|
| Are you talking to me? :-)

I was talking to the people making these claims in general, not you
specifically.

| Where in my messages did you find these claims?
| I think that "simplifies" is a wrong word. See bellow.

Well, Nikita, I have a long history of misunderstanding you, so if you
say that this is not what you meant I believe it. Sorry about that.
 
* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| Nikita, I don't see the difference. It's not that I object to any of
| what you say, or think that it's all wrong. What I don't buy is the
| "they are already using a form of the RM"-bit. You have to do some
| kind of mapping and conversion regardless of whether you use the RM
| or the SAM, and I can't for the life of me see that there is a real
| difference.
 
* Nikita Ogievetsky
|
| I think that the confusion comes from the notions of SAM and RM.
| When I am using them, I am referring to the future versions of SAM & RM,
| they may even have different names then.
| I agree that SAM may be THE API for XTM, HyTM and any structures directly
| mappable into XTM.

Please stop calling the SAM an API. That's not what it is, and the
distinction is important. The SAM is a data model. TMAPI is an API.
They are not the same. Sorry to keep repeating this, but it's actually
important to me.

| (I actually liked Michel's "TAO model" naming suggestion.)

I think it captures the essence of the RM/SAM difference, but I'm not
sure we should call the SAM that.

| You, Lars, said that you had mapped arbitrary structures into XTM (or SAM)
| and it was easy..., -
| what exactly have you done? What had driven you to map those structures to
| one topic map construct or another?
| I think that you had implicitly (without admitting that - almost
| unconsciously) parsed those constructs to the RM level and then reassembled
| them on the TAO level, decided on the ontology, etc.

That's an unusually perceptive statement. What we did was to convert
the information to RDF first (which is very close to the RM, so in
that sense you are right) and from there we mapped it to topic maps,
pretty much in the way you describe.

| All I am saying is: lets make hidden explicit.
| It is not diminishing the value of the SAM.
| But it expands the Topic Maps territory.

Here I lose you completely. I followed your description of how we do
autogen, but how does that apply to "embracing other knowledge
structures" with the RM?

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