[xtm-wg] Defending the TNC

[Geir Ove Grønmo <grove@ontopia.net>]

Ok, I guess I've been criticizing the TNC a bit to much lately. I
think I've found a way that I can defend it:

Scoping basenames with its parent topic is the only way that would
make basenames guaranteed universally unique, i.e. unless two topics
by any other means is deemed to be representing the same subject and
those two topics have identical basename strings in identical scope
(note that the two parent topics have then been merged; what used to
be different themes is now the same theme and the identical basenames
get merged by the duplicate suppression rule).

To me it seems reasonable to always do this - either explicitly or
implicitly (the application always assumes that alle names are scoped
by their parent topic). It makes perfect sense to scope all names by
their parent topic don't you think? Scoping by anything else, to
satisfy the TNC, is in my view not very safe[1].

So if you don't scope basenames by the parent topic that's your own
problem. Its too bad if N of your topics got merged
automatically because of something you hadn't thought about[1].

The fact that this makes sense also makes me [so some extent] believe in
the usefulness of the Topic Naming Constraint. :)

- - - 

I also have a question regarding using basenames for display:

o Should a basename be used for labelling (display) by a generic
  application unless it has been marked up as being suitable for
  display?

Cheers,
Geir O.

[1] If a processor finds that two topics are going to merge it'll
sometimes have disastrous effects. Merging two topics sometimes leads
to other topics being merged and so on [...until there is just one
topic left in the topic map! :]

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