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

["Daniel Rivers-Moore" <daniel.rivers-moore@rivcom.com>]

I believe the Conceptual Model is indeed intended to be an aid to
understanding, both at a technical level and at a "layperson's" level. This
is one of the reasons we chose the term "conceptual model", rather than
"abstract data model", for example. Lars has been arguing from the
requirements of the implementers. Bernard is voicing a plea from the
requirements of the "world at large". I believe we must meet both
requirements.

The most recent CMS submission is still "work in progress". It does NOT
represent the culmination of our work (yet). The prose has written by Chris
Angus and captures some of the technical insights that were clarified during
recent sessions involving Chris, Graham, Matthew and myself. Only Graham had
reviewed it at the point at which it was submitted. I have now begun to
review both the prose and the drawings, and will be suggesting:

- some additional drawings, to bring out other aspects of the model's
structure that are not obvious in the current submission

- a re-ordering of the material, so that the part about Resource Handles
(which is difficult and appears highly "technical" (though in fact it
contains some important and quite intuitive concepts) comes later in the
document, after the main model constructs have been made familiar, and is
reworded to bring out the intuitiveness of what is being said as well as its
technical manifestation.

- additional "ordinary languge" prose about the relationship between what
exists in the real world, what exists in the topic map itself, what exists
in the mind of the topic map author, and what will exist in a a mind of the
topic map user after the topic map has been navigated and its resource
locators resolved to information resources that the user has read (or
otherwise assimilated)

I'll be discussing these things by phone with Graham today, and will
probably be able to do some serious editorial work late today (I'm on the
West Coast, so that means VERY late), and tomorrow, so that a revised and
fuller submission will be on the table by the time we sit down in Dallas on
Friday.

Time is very short, and it is a great pity that neither Graham nor Chris nor
Matthew will be able to attend the Dallas meetings. Graham has said he will
be available during the Dallas meetings for telephone discussions.
Nonetheless, we will have Luis, Peter and (I hope) Eliot ... ELIOT, will you
be there??? ... as well as myself to help in communciating the
real-world-ness of the conceptual model to the group. And I have already
offered my help to the Editors (Steve and Michel) in working on the prose of
the Conceptual Model as it will be presented in the XTM specification,
during the time between Dallas and Washington.

I hope that helps.

Daniel


-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Vatant [mailto:b.vatant@wanadoo.fr]
Sent: 07 November 2000 22:31
To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
Subject: [xtm-wg] Re: [XTM-CMS] Is there no data model ?


Sorry to be very much naive and basic, but Lars' remarks below seem to
allow me that for once.
May I ask if what is supposed to get out of all that is a model
*understandable* by a wide range of users, like e.g. managers of web
projects? Or will it remain a technical specialists' affair ?
If I understand well, XTM has some pretention to be a pervasive tool in the
near future. So we'll have to explain to these "non-specialists" why and
how it will change their life. Is this question premature or off-topic?
Would it generate some argument towards such or such model ? The technical
arguments flying far up over my head -even if I try to have a daily
immersion session reading the posts here - Hi Steve - I don't know if such
pedagogic concern is to be taken into account at this stage of work.
But I feel somehow it should be more of a commercial feature to be able to
explain, out of the simplest-possible-model, e.g "why XTM is a language
permitting a portable implementation of your view-of-the-world" than e.g.
"XTM has achieved formal closure". Does it make sense ?

Bernard

<Lars>
To me it seems important that the data model should simply disregard
facts such as names being privileged occurrences and types being
privileged associations. If not, I fear that we shall end up with a
soup-like model where everything is either a link or a resource and
everyone is left totally mystified as to how this thing is supposed to
be used.
Topic maps are useful because they take the joke Entity-Relationship
model of the universe that says 'generic entity with relationship to
other generic entities' and distinguishes certain kinds of entities
and relationships.
So while the fact that topic maps on the most abstract level only
consist of links and (references to) resources is deeply true and
useful, it is what topic maps have made out of that starting point
that is really useful about them.
</Lars>




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