replacement for information type terminology?

[Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>]

Reworking the topic "Information
types and domains" in the specialization section of the spec - now
that we're getting rid of information type in favour of topic type, it
underscores the fact that we have a slight awkwardness here, since we're
really talking about top-down specialization (from maps and topics) versus
sideways specialization (domains).

So, thinking of a title for the topic,
we could go for:

Map types, topic types, and domain types
        -
awkward, and doesn't really give the sense that it's the map and topic
type versus the domain type

Structural specialization and domain
specialization
        -
captures the idea that information types and maps express the structure
of a content unit while domains express semantics shared across content
units: structural specialization produces new topic types or map types;
domain specialization produces new domains for use across multiple map
types or across multiple topic types.

I guess I'm kind of tending towards
structural specialization, but I'm also aware that there is a cost to introducing
more terminology, and I want to validate that the value of the new term
would be worth it.

Other suggestions for an equivalent
term are welcome - I just think saying "topic and map type specialization"
every time we want to distinguish from domains is going to be awkward.

Michael Priestley
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com