Re: [xtm-wg] parallel development of syntax and concept models

[Ben Darnell <ben@thoughtstream.org>]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2000 at 12:06:59PM -0600, Jim Farrugia wrote:
> There is an initial confusion I have when I hear both "topic" and "association"
> described as "links".  It seems more natural that the word "topic" should
> refer to, say, a node or "that which is connected to another topic by a link".
> That is, it seems to be a place, a destination, a thing that can be connected,
> rather than a link between things that can be connected.  On the other hand,
> it seems to make good sense that an association is thought of more
> as a link than as that which is to be linked.
> 
> Can someone please help clarify this for me?  It really does seem
> that "topic" does somehow have a dual meaning - as an endpoint of
> a link, or as a link itself.

This took me a while to grasp too.  Basically, topics are nodes in
topic-map space which contain links to things *outside* of
topic-map space.  They are the endpoints of association links, which
cannot point outside the topic map.

-Ben

-- 
Ben Darnell              ben@thoughtstream.org
http://thoughtstream.org
Finger bgdarnel@debian.org for PGP/GPG key 1024D/1F06E509


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