Hi,
Here are some concerns that I'd like to
put to the AG before the next meeting. The issues I address here might have been
covered by HyTime (with which I am yet to familiarise myself) where ISO 13250 is
concerned but I want to see if we need to import new ideas into XTM.
To go back a few steps...
I discussion with JackP, whilst Jack
acknowledged the issue of the 'late binding' of visualisation to topic maps he
remained concerned about memory/bandwidth issues with regard to processing TMs
for visualisation, particularly where both server and client resources might be
severely limited. I want to borrow that point and raise a concern about the
processing or generation of TMs for dynamically constructed aggregates of
resources. I think that it is a point of high importance for XTM as the WWWeb
becomes an ever more fluid flow of data from one place to another.
Imagine, if you would, the following
scenario:
Assume that I have a tool that is a lot
like a search engine, that fetches a pile of interesting media of one format or
another in response to a query. Assume also that the pile fetched has no
coherent TM already defined for it in a single TM document somewhere, but that
each bit of stuff is referred to in various TMs' topics and associations. At the
same time as the pile of stuff is fetched for me I want to have a minimal TM
constructed for it, one that covers only those topics referred to in this set of
stuff and any relevant associations that I can grab.
Q. How do I construct that minimal TM?
I.e. how do I get the parts that might reside in fifty or more separate TM docs,
given that I only want to grab those parts, without shoving the entire set of
fifty+ docs through my XTM processor to get there?
(This scenario applies just as much for
a search engine with one huge already-constructed TM only needing to serve up a
small part to your client media browser, I think.)
Does it make sense to suggest something
like the following, that we should have in the XTM spec something like an
'import-from' or 'include-from' tag set or attribute set,
e.g. (shown as elements
here...)
<topicmap_xtm>
<import-from
href="http://somewhere.net/blah/a_tm.xml">
<topic-list>
<topic-name>Foo</topic-name>
<topic-name>Bar</topic-name>
</topic-list>
<assoc-list>
<assoctype-name>Glue</assoctype-name>
<assoctype-name>Glue</assoctype-name>
</assoc-list>
<facet-list>
...
</facet-list>
</import-from>
</topicmap_xtm>
This also has implications for what
conforming XTM processors should be able to do(?) .
Any thoughts?
best,
Peter
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