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Subject: [topicmaps-comment] XTM vs. XFML and Facet Maps
Maybe I've been asleep, but I apparently missed announcement of a markup language named XFML, "based on the topicmap standard." It does seem to blend some of the ideas of topic maps and some of the work going on in the Published Subject TC [hence I've posted this message to both groups, though not cross-posted]. eXchangable Faceted Metadata Language http://xfml.org/ http://xfml.org/spec/ Anyone have any experience with this? My first impression is that it's a bit dubious design, but I've not downloaded and played with the software or spent a lot of time investigating yet -- not clear why development of a new markup language was entirely necessary (perhaps merely subsetting the XTM syntax would have preserved some sense of how they relate), or that XFML is actually an improvement. My interest in it comes from the idea of "faceted taxonomies," which in itself is a valuable concept. From the XFML home page: "Unlike Topicmaps, XFML is designed to be easy to code for, and easy to understand. It trades power for ease, yet retains some extremely powerful [sic]. Publishing XFML is conceptually similar to publishing RSS: you get many of the same advantages: it is easy, and you get a lot of incoming links and additional functionality possibilities that would otherwise be extremely difficult to obtain." Is missing some core features (such as subject identity), yet still claims to preserve the ability to merge topics. I suppose that if it's legitimately a subset of XTM, then it's possible to write some sort of converter. Murray ...................................................................... Murray Altheim <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/> Knowledge Media Institute The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK One of the sad things about corporations is that despite their name they have no corpora, no body responsible for their actions. They are therefore free to do whatever is the will of those who control them, and can transmogrify as necessary, like ghosts, to thwart those who might try. --ma
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