[tmql-wg] Toma - Use Cases Solution

[Rani Pinchuk]

Hi all,

A document that describes the Toma use cases solutions is placed in 
http://www.spaceapplications.com/toma/UC.html.

I still plan to write it in LTM files so Lars can add it to the document
http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmql/uc-solutions.html.

During the effort of writing this solutions, I found all kind of
features I should add/mention in the Toma description
(http://www.spaceapplications.com/toma/Toma.html) so this file is also
updated.

In the context of the very long result-set thread - In order to solve
the XML use cases, I defined a new way for Toma to create XML. This is
according to the Skin pattern, and I should still develop the idea.
However, I wonder if those examples makes this issue clearer (so how can
we separate queries from the XML).

I found that the use cases are excellent - they really challenged the
languages. However I think they don't cover a very important domain
which is "introspective queries" (as it is called in the 'tolog for
TMQL' presentation). You can find many examples of those in the Toma
description document. I think that TMQL must include those kind of
queries as it is used when implementing topic map browsers.

Beside that, in my opinion the topic map that is used for the use cases
is not the perfect one for such objective. I think that we should use a
topic map that is about a domain we all know about, and yet is not too
small and simple. 

For the Toma description, a topic map about computers written by my
colleague Olivier Lamborelle is used (see
http://www.spaceapplications.com/toma/SAS-Computers-TM.xml). It is not
totally simple topic map, but because it is about computers, it is very
easy for all of us to understand. If you want, you can download and use
this topic map (it is free for the community to use as long as the
copyright notice is kept).

Maybe it is better also that the topic map is created in XTM which is
the standard now (although I prefer for example AsTMa= to describe topic
maps manually). Other point that I think that Steve Pepper already
mentioned is that the topic map should contain all the possible XTM
tags.

Rani


-- 
Rani Pinchuk
Software Engineer
Space Applications Services
Leuvensesteenweg, 325
B-1932 Zaventem
Belgium

Tel.: + 32 2 721 54 84
Fax.: + 32 2 721 54 44

http://www.spaceapplications.com