RE: [xtm-wg] Structural subspecification "simple as a spreadsheet "

["Wrightson, Ann" <Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk>]

This feels very familiar - back to Leibniz & beyond, folks have struck on
"simple frameworks" for organizing all knowledge, which can strike like
bolts of enlightenment (yes, I've been afflicted myself...). Trouble is,
they are usually only actually useful in problem-classes very like whatever
is pressing for solution by the "enlightened" at that time....

Sorry to appear cynical, but I do think that Topic Maps as they are (the
concept, NOT the 13250 syntax) are about as simple as you can get & still be
really useful. The implementation can be simplified, sure - which is part of
what XTM is about - and the abstract model could be implemented in other
ways, too, eg using spreadsheets (I think the generic spreadsheet concept
would be a nice exercise in defining a public subject with non-trivial
embedded structure, btw).  You can also do a lot to make it simpler by
hiding some of the intermediate layers in notation (I recently contributed
some ideas), and by collapsing some commonly used concepts into "public"
stuff to use by reference. Much better to gain simplicity that way, with a
well-founded underpinning.

Sceptically yours...

Ann W.

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrius Kulikauskas [mailto:ms@ms.lt]
Sent: 19 July 2000 00:10
To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
Subject: [xtm-wg] Structural subspecification "simple as a spreadsheet"


Hi,
    I would like to gauge what interest there might be in an extremely
simple format for aggregates of thoughts (a thought might typically be a
note, but also an image, code, data, file, etc.)  The purpose of the
format is to facilitate the purposeful import/export of aggregates of
notes between tools for organizing thoughts, such as www.thebrain.com,
www.mindmanager.com, http://thoughtstream.org, www.memes.net,
www.multicentric.com, but also Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, etc.
    The format is a single six-column table that could be manipulated
with a spreadsheet program like Excel.  It is a very simplified form of
TopicMaps, perhaps - a bastardized form, so I am curious for whom else
it might be useful.
    Each record in the table is understood to be a thought.  The order
of the records, in general, does not matter.  The six fields are:  ID,
FromID, ToID, Intent, Prompt, Content.
    The purpose of the format is for conceptual modeling, so the fields
can be defined quite loosely, and well formedness is not an issue.  For
example, any or all of the fields might be null, including the
identifiers, and the identifiers need not be unique.  The model helps an
author and assisting programmer transfer records (thoughts) from one
software environment to another, by making explicit the following
constraints:
    1) The author distinguishes, for each thought, between the prompt
and the content.  The prompt is what for the author evokes the content,
but is not the content.  The content is that which holds the attention
of the author.  Tools for organizing thoughts typically use the prompt
to facilitate visualization.  [In Topic Maps, a "thought" is a topic, a
"prompt" is a name, and a "content" is an occurrence.  Here there is the
restriction that there can be only one name and one occurrence per
topic.  Also, the occurrence is kept with (or "in") the topic, because
the author by definition has authority to write.]
    2) A relationship (or link) between thoughts consists of three
thoughts: modeling (correctly or not) that our mental state moves from A
to B by means of C.  Also: every thought "ID" is taken to be a
relationship from "FromID" to "ToID" where the latter may both be
possibly null, (in which case we have a node).  This is in the spirit of
the mathematician Von Neumann, who suggested that instructions are data
and should not be stored separately within computers.  More importantly,
a thought that we take to be only a node, may always turn out to be a
relationship between two other thoughts, and still be a thought.  [Here
a "relationship (or link)" is an association.  This violates the spirit
and letter of topic maps, where it is important that associations are
not topics, so as to distinguish the annotator and the author.  However,
if an author is looking at their own web of thoughts, it seems strange
to force such a dichotomy upon them.]
    3) The intent of the relationship is recorded by a structural link
type, such as: S = step in a sequence, H = branch in a hierarchy, DN =
link in a directed network, NN = link in a nondirected network, and so
on, for all of the structural link types that we are able to find in
use.  These are simply the local intents of the author, and need not
hold globally, so that an author may intend to link some of her thoughts
into a sequence, but she may not be finished, so that there are only
segments.  Or the links may have inadvertently formed a circle. 
Validity is not an issue (in fact, invalidity is interesting!)  These
structural link types are the most interesting bits of information
because they are what we keep in mind when we map from our "mental
interface" from one environment to another.  [In Topic Maps, the various
allowed values for intent would be association types, and in general,
you could abuse this column for your own purposes with your own
additional association types.]
    Why such a format?  Because it is the simplest format that addresses
our problem: we would like to be able to do thoughtful conversion of the
thoughts we accumulate from one software environment to another.  My
goal is that the standard be simple, clear, and elegant enough so that
users and assisting programmers understand the relevant issues, and are
not confused by irrelevant issues.  We are currently designing a
converter (in the public domain) between Excel and TheBrain, which means
that if you could put your data in this tabular form, then you could see
it in TheBrain.  There is a Software Development Kit for TheBrain which
gives you much greater control.  But I am curious if you might see uses
for such converters.
    We need to have a community of users for our standard to be
supported with a variety of converters.  We are working in the spirit of
HTML (rather than SGML), trying to design a framework conceptually clear
and simple enough that it could be used by anybody who can manipulate a
spreadsheet, download and run macros, or even tweak a bit of code.  In
other words, so that it would be as easy (or hard) as writing a home
page was back in 1995.  The end result would be a ThinkerNet - a
"slow-motion" kind of connectivity where somebody may go to Africa for
three months, come back with a floppy disk full of ideas, or mail it to
their friend.
    I think this vision has a lot in common with TopicMaps, and in
particular TopicMaps.Org  The purpose of using XML is to popularize
TopicMaps.  What about using a spreadsheet?  Could such a format help
popularize TopicMaps?
    The format I've described can be written up as a subspecification of
TopicMaps, a "child-like" version where each topic has only one name and
one occurrence.  On the other hand, the very same format can, I think,
capture the full generality of TopicMaps.  This is because we can extend
the format in many ways.  We can code within the Content many
occurrences, and within the Prompt many names, and within the Intent
many types.  We can use markup languages for each of these fields.  We
can use duplicate IDs to identify two records as being the same record. 
We can extend the number of columns.  We can use the Content as a
pointer to read-only content located elsewhere.
    The format is useful because it encourages the design of a network
of converters that are simple but badly needed (at least I wish I had
them so I could make use of many different software tools).  I
appreciate your thoughts on whether such a format, and such converters,
might be useful to you.

Andrius Kulikauskas
Director
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt/importexport.html
ms@ms.lt
+370 (2) 60-67-38



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Create professional forms and interactive web pages in less time 
with Mozquito(tm) technology.
Form the Web today - visit:
http://click.egroups.com/1/6342/4/_/337252/_/963964438/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Post a message, send it to:   xtm-wg@eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Replace complicated scripts using 14 new HTML tags that work in
current browsers.
Form the Web today - visit:
http://click.egroups.com/1/5769/4/_/337252/_/963998238/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Post a message, send it to:   xtm-wg@eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com