xml:id RE: [sc34wg3] Compact syntax requirement question

[Gabriel Hopmans]

Hello All,

In the whole thread other issues have passed and some are relevant as
well. In the last reactions these are not discussed on ignored. (or
just missed)

As you might know there is also another thread about the whole
subject. In case you missed it, it was a reply on Bernard and I wrote:

Lars Marius wrote earlier also about the relevance of the CTM syntax
in relation TMQL and TMCL. It is amonst others here where without a
standardisation effort achieving intereroperability easily can fail.
For this initial work on CTM it is important to find requirements and
evaluations from the user community. So it would be nice to find
postings that are more about that.
At the moment we have more then enough discussion material why CTM is
useful or not ;-)

It might be helpful to have a look at the TMCL and TMQL presentations.
See for instance:
http://topicmaps.it.bond.edu.au/weblogs.mc

Thank your and best regards,

Gabriel

On 7/21/05, Jack Park <jackpark@gmail.com> wrote:
> I like what Jim said and Steve's following comments. I have people
> writing XTM using Excel. Just give them annotated columns and they
> fill in the blanks just fine.
>=20
> I suppose one could do the same with CTM.
>=20
> Jack
>=20
> On 7/21/05, Steve Carton <steve.carton@retrievalsystems.com> wrote:
> > I'd like to second what Jim is saying here.  If we develop a CTM syntax=
,
> > it will be for the techies to use.
> >
> > I develop TMs in XTM almost exclusively and I don't find that to be a
> > burden, thanks to copy/paste!  But I'm almost always developing the TMs
> > as a "spec" against which a user-friendly application is going to be
> > developed, one in which the users won't know or care that a TM is under
> > the hood.
> >
> > I guess, for me at least, the question is, why develop a CTM syntax as =
a
> > standard? Is there a well-founded reason for this? Because I don't see
> > the needs of techies as sufficient justification.
> >
> > Steve Carton
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org
> > [mailto:sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org] On Behalf Of Mason, James David
> > (MXM)
> > Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 9:53 AM
> > To: sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
> > Subject: RE: xml:id RE: [sc34wg3] Compact syntax requirement question
> >
> > To reply to a few comments from Robert Barta:
> >
> > When I'm speaking of syntax-directed editors, I mean something like
> > ArborText
> > or XMetaL, which can be cusomized as an editing environment so that the
> > end
> > user never sees chicken lips or the other syntactic mess that we put
> > into
> > XML. And so I'm not talking about the raw-XML mode of XMetaL or XMLSpy
> > or
> > oXygen.
> >
> > Robert says that CTM-like things are for "engineers out there who very
> > easily
> > pick up languages". I have no complaint with that. But if topic maps ar=
e
> > ever
> > to get outside the geek community of people who like learning languages
> > and
> > messing with the neat internals of things, then we've got to get beyond
> > picking up languages. (I like picking up languages. My doctorate is
> > basically
> > in comparative and historical linguistics. I took every Germanic
> > language my
> > graduate school offered. But I consider myself a wierdo: just ask my
> > wife,
> > who was dreaming in Old Norse by the time she finished typing my
> > dissertation.)
> >
> > The end users, if we're successful, are going to be people who don't
> > even
> > know that there is such a thing as a topic map. For these users, custom
> > editors make lots of sense. I think BrainBank, built from OKS, is a goo=
d
> > example of the sort of things the majority of creators of TMs will need=
.
> > None
> > of my clients has ever seen XTM data (except perhaps as a horror-show
> > slide
> > in a PowerPoint presentation); they always approach the TM through a
> > custom
> > interface (though I admit mine are not nearly so slick as BrainBank).
> >
> > I currently edit XTM in oXygen, which I was glad to pay for because it'=
s
> > a
> > good IDE for XSLT. It's fine for me; I've been looking at raw markup of
> > one
> > sort or another nearly half my life. (I actually generate much of my XT=
M
> > through XSLT, and I need to look at the raw results to make sure I've
> > done
> > the right things. You know the drill.) I'd never wish that on the folks
> > for
> > whom I'm developing TMs. They'd never use it. But they'd never write LT=
M
> > in
> > Notepad, either. Too much syntax to remember.
> >
> > The overwhelming experience of the SGML/XML industry, coming out of mor=
e
> > than
> > 20 years' experience, is that tools like ArborText or FrameMaker are
> > critical
> > to success. I've used practically all of them, starting with the
> > Datalogics
> > editor that came to market even before SGML was finalized (I wrote my
> > report
> > to ISO announcing that this committee had completed the formal
> > requirements
> > for finalization in the Datalogics tool back in 1985, thanks to Pam
> > Gennusa).
> >
> > Let's face it. We're building these things for ourselves, and they're
> > proliferating because we have fun doing it. We need to think very hard
> > about
> > how many of them are pushed for ISO standards. I had my doubts about
> > RELAX NG
> > Compact, but it came in from another SDO with which we cooperate, so we
> > might
> > as well take it. It can be argued that TMs aren't really an XML
> > application:
> > Michel can tell you that I had my doubts about taking them in, too. The=
y
> > wound up in SC34 because they looked interesting, there were some peopl=
e
> > ready to take them on, and they were supposed to be something made out
> > of
> > HyTime, which was supposed to be related to SGML, which we were
> > responsible
> > for. (And the origin of HyTime is another story, which Newcomb can tell
> > you
> > about, but it's another case of a hobby becoming a standard because it
> > was
> > fun to do, and I did fight very hard to get that one into the
> > committee.)
> >
> > I keep a very skeptical eye on all the things we're devloping in WG3.
> > I'm
> > particularly skeptical of claims that gobs of people are developing TMs
> > in
> > LTM, etc. Sure, people are doing it, but they're not enough of a
> > community to
> > justify the existence of SC34. I know some of the people, and most of
> > the
> > ones I know are techno-nuts, including my colleague who taught his
> > 12-year-old geek son to do a TM of his Pokemon cards in LTM. If we've
> > really
> > got to have a new syntacic structure for technical reasons, then let's
> > do it.
> > But let's avoid saying we're doing it for the end users. They won't buy
> > it.
> >
> > Jim Mason
> >
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