RE: [xtm-wg] A challenge on "the graph"

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

Nikita says:
> Syntax => PM => ASR" =>PM => Syntax"
> Syntax' => PM => ASR" =>PM => Syntax"
>
> Wow!
> This looks like a beginning of a processing algebra to me :-)

Perhaps it is also a further requirement statement for the processing
model - a more formal definition of the interoperability requirement. I like
the feel of this.

Nikita says:
> May be we should introduce a notion of "Universal ASR" ?

I think this is what Groves aim to provide. It would be of real value to see
a Grove representation of a topic map, and a formal description of how to
map from XTM syntax to such a representation.

Nikita says:
>And may be this is what actually Lars have in mind when referring to PM.

Looking at Lars's approach based on XML Infoset, I am extremely concerned
that it is far too close to the XTM syntax. I don't want information objects
corresponding to the elements in the XTM document. I want the information
objects to reflect the meaning of those elements, which are much closer to
the conceptual model.

Lars finds the conceptual model "too conceptual". I find his PM approach
"too syntactic".

I did submit work in progress towards a UML model of the mapping from the
Conceptual Model to the syntax. No-one has responded to this, as far as I am
aware. In doing this mapping work (which is far from complete - but I wanted
feedback on the approach before continuint) I found it necessary to create
some "abstract classes". These are classes that are never instantiated in
the syntax. Could these be the middle layer objects that Lars really wants?
Comments please - I re-attach this piece of work here.

Daniel


-----Original Message-----
From: Nikita Ogievetsky [mailto:nogievet@cogx.com]
Sent: 23 March 2001 00:21
To: xtm-wg@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] A challenge on "the graph"


Murray,

My point is that PM should tell you
WHAT should happen, not HOW it should happen.

It should not try to explain the second "=>" (arrow) in the graph bellow.
Syntax => PM => Application Specific Representation (ASR)

And your responsibility as a developer
is to ensure that your software can safely travel this round trip
and return to some Syntax':

Syntax => PM => ASR =>PM => Syntax'

Where Syntax and Syntax' are not necessarily the same
but the constraint is that given any other conformant ASR",
both Syntax and Syntax' should be serialized to the same Syntax".

Syntax => PM => ASR" =>PM => Syntax"
Syntax' => PM => ASR" =>PM => Syntax"

Wow!
This looks like a beginning of a processing algebra to me :-)

May be we should introduce a notion of "Universal ASR" ?
And may be this is what actually Lars have in mind when referring to PM.

Nikita


Murray Altheim wrote:
> Nikita Ogievetsky wrote:
> >
> > While I was composing this message, I got so many
> > new e-mails in my inbox that
> > got a little messed up with who said what ;-))
> >
> > In brief I agree with James and Sam and sort-of disagree with
> > Lars and Murray on the following:
> >
> > I do not think that PM should be a tutorial on how to write programs.
> > I was always thinking that PM should be a model, just
> > like CM, but on a lower level.
> > Sort of Assembler versus C++.
> > I do not know of any notation other then graph
> > to represent PM clear and vendor-independently.
>
> Well, not to defend myself, but why would I read the PM if it didn't
> tell me something I needed to know? [speaking as an implementor] I'm
> not looking for a tutorial, I'm looking for a model that is in some
> way comprehensible and useful as a model for those who attempt to
> write applications that process topic maps. If it doesn't do that,
> it's an academic exercise.


----------------------------------------------------------
Nikita Ogievetsky               Cogitech Inc
XML/XSLT/XLink/TopicMaps   Consultant
nogievet@cogx.com   --   (917) 406-8734
http://www.cogx.com     Cogito Ergo


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ConceptualModelToSyntaxMapping.zip