[xtm-wg] [XTM-CMS] Is there no data model?

[Lars Marius Garshol <larsga@garshol.priv.no>]

[Initial note: I have largely been standing outside the XTM process,
so it is quite possible that I have not gotten the story straight
here, and I know that.  If I haven't got it right, please tell me.]


As far as I understood, XTM was to produce an XML-based interchange
syntax, a data model and some other stuff.  To me, the data model
seemed absolutely crucial, the interchange syntax merely useful and no
doubt the rest will also be useful. However, as I see it, all else
pales into insignificance compared with the data model.

It is now my impression that XTM _may_ produce a syntax specification
by December 1st, that it has a so-called conceptual model and that
there is no data model in sight at all. To be frank, this scares me!
We have one implied-but-very-inadequately-specified data model in ISO
13250, and now it looks like we are going to have another in XTM 1.0.

We have at least five different topic map implementations (tmproc,
TM4J, the Ontopia TME, the Empolis TME and the Mondeca TME) based on
these inadequately-specified data models, and there are even
discussions of new standards to be built on this very sand-like base.

How can we properly assess and discuss the changes the XTM syntax
modifications do to the underlying model? How can we make sure that
the five (or more!) topic map engines implement the same model? How
can we make sure that applications built on top of the engines in
various installations will not make wildly conflicting assumptions?
Where is really the documentation of all the unspoken assumptions in
these various standards? 

What further worries me is that the community does not seem to
consider this very important. (Ref the TMQL discussion as one
example.) In my opinion the community absolutely MUST make sure that
we get an abstract data model with proper specification of important
operations like merging.

All this syntax stuff is all very well, but it is the data model that
really matters and that just HAS (where is the 72pt purple blinking
text when you need it?) to be done, and done soon.

So, what can be done? And how quickly?

If it sounds like I'm panicking it's probably because I am.

--Lars M.


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