Re: [xtm-wg] Topic Naming Constraint question

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

* Thomas B. Passin
|
| OK, but there are plenty of other cases where it would be harder to
| know.

Certainly! I'm just making it clear that this isn't one of them.
 
* Thomas B. Passin
|
| I wasn't exactly arguing that the spec would allow you to do these
| things, contrary to what it really requires.  I was suggesting that
| the script be thought of as doing a provisional job, such that a
| final merging of topics (conforming with the rules in the spec)
| would take place after some possible intervention.  

That might be possible in the sense that it is implementable; the
problem with it is that even if my software were to alert me to this
problem (which it did) I still wouldn't know how to resolve the
conflict. That, after all, is why I posted the first message in this
thread. :)

| After all, most of the suggestions that have been posted proposed
| some kind of tinkering - sometimes by hand, sometimes by rule - to
| avoid an automatic merge.

They do, and my problems with all of them are one of two cases:

 - they seem wrong from an information modeling point of view, or,
 - they don't agree with the spec.

| An automatic name mangling (like adding (1) and (2) to the two
| instances' basenames) has been suggested by someone else (sorry, I
| forget who), hasn't it?  That would fall into the same category,
| even if the script itself were to do it.

Yes. It would work, but if that is the only solution it would also
constitute proof that the TNC is broken. (It has also been suggested
before, like you say, by several different people, I think. At least
Kal has mentioned it in an Ontopia meeting, and I think it's been said
on this list as well by someone else.)

What I am after in this discussion is one of two things:

 - a way of modeling this case that avoids the TNC without requiring
   the topic map to include contorted or unnatural constructs

 - proof (to me) that the TNC is broken and that there's nothing else
   for it but to work around it

So far we seem to be aiming for the latter.

--Lars M.


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