Re: [xtm-wg] Dynamic Generation and Serving of Topic Maps

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

* Dave Pawson
| 
| Most unlike Lars to shout so loud.

Not really. :-)

| I'm more than prepared to stand corrected, but two points please
| Lars.
| 
| 1. *X*TM    ?Why the objection to XML?

I have no objection to XML as the basis for the *interchange* syntax,
but the interchange syntax is just that: a method for transporting
topic maps from one point to another.  

They can also be authored manually as XML documents, in which case one
has an (in the long term) rather unusual situation, where the XML
document really can be seen to be the topic map. That is rather
unusual though, once we get past the initial stage where proper tools
are few and far between.

| 2. I'd tend to favour your database based TM's, due to size, but
| what XML based tools are there that parse from disk?

I'm afraid I don't really understand the question. If you store your
topic maps in databases you need three things:

 - an import-from-XML capability (which can use an ordinary XML
   parser)

 - an export-from-XML capability

 - means for accessing and modifying the topic map in the database
 

XML-based tools don't enter into it, except in the import and export
parts, which are crucial, but rarely used compared to direct access.

| Am I right in thinking that you envisage a whole suite of tools
| specially for topic maps in an XML domain?

Depends what you mean by 'you' and 'an XML domain'.  At this point I
don't expect to be involved in any topic map project that uses XML for
much besides import and export, and perhaps some auto-generation.
 
| I had understood that XTM was on hand to bring TM's out of the 
| clouds of theory and into the pragmatists world.
| 
| Are you of a different mind?

I am not the right person to ask what the purpose of XTM is. In any
case, I don't think the purpose of XTM is very relevant to this
discussion.  It's by no means obvious that XTM will develop TMQL.

--Lars M.


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