[sc34wg3] New syntax for (binary) associations

[Steve Pepper]

*Dmitry
|
| We are working at the level of representations. 
| "is-employed-by(X,Y)" can represent exactly the same
| thing as "is-employed-by (employee: X, employer: Y)"

Yes ... or no. I'm really not sure if we are on the same page
here.

I want it to be possible for both the following pieces of CTM

	employed_by(X,Y)        !! (1)

and
	X {employed_by Y}       !! (2)

to be *interpreted* as

	employed_by(employee X, employer Y)  !! (3)

Is that what you are proposing? It is very different
from this interpretation:

	employed_by(tm:subject X, tm:object Y)

which is what you seemed to be proposing.

| I think it is enough to have a good text description which
| explains meaning of "is-employed-by(X,Y)" . After that we
| can use compact form.

A *text* description? And how is the parser to interpret that
and generate the equivalent of (3) in the TMDM?

I really don't understand what you are proposing. It seems to be
some new kind of concept that, as Robert says, is more like RDF
than Topic Maps. I certainly don't think it has any place in CTM
at this stage.

| I like the idea of explicit "Property" definitions
| 
| o:works-for
|      isa Property;
|      tm:subject_role o:Employee @  o:is-employed;
|      tm:object_role o:Employer @  o:is-employed.

You express yourself too elliptically. What is this supposed to
mean, and how is it to be interpreted? What is the purpose of
the scoping topic o:is-employed? From its name it seems to be a
synonym for o:works-for, but you surely intend something else.

The following, much simpler construct, would give me what I am
looking for:

  o:employed_by {
    tm:subject_role o:Employee;
    tm:object_role o:Employer}

It would allow us to say

  dmitry {o:employed_by otpp}

and have the role types assigned correctly without having to
resort to templates.

If we did this, I would be more willing to see templates be
enhanced to do the more powerful things Lars was once hoping
for.

Rationale: Simple things that most people want to do most of the
time should be extremely simple and intuitive. Once we have
achieved that, the advanced things can be as complex as we like.

Steve
 
--
Conference Chair, Topic Maps 2008
Oslo, April 2-4 2008
www.topicmaps.com