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Subject: RE: [xtm-wg] re topic.scope
Nikita, Piotr,
I agree that scope is a mighty yet heavily overloaded concept. And like all
sophisticated 'tools' it can either be of great use when it is used in a
careful and consistent manner, but hazardous and confusing when used without
any special care and methodology. Like many other aspects, I propose, the
correct use of scope is part of a well planned topic map design process. A
TM design will absolutely be based on strict type hierarchies and schemata.
In such a scenario scope can also be represented, as Piotr said, by the
superclass hiearchy of a topic. If you understand context as the environment
or domain that sorrounds or includes the 'topic of interest' (which is a
common definition in literature), context can even be interpreted as the sum
of all associations and associated topics, i.e. the complete topic map from
the point of view of the topic of interest.
This may sound rather academic, but it illustrates my point: there are many
ways to 'model' or represent context, and scope is just one means which is
explicitly declared in the topic map language. So I think scope should be
used as a syntactic shorthand (note that the <scope> element is again just a
shorthand for a topic association expressing scope, where one member plays
the role of being scoped and the other playing the role of representing the
scope) in cases where the more elaborate modelling of context by other means
is either too tedious or may be beyond the intended 'expressiveness' of the
topic map. In this way it might well serve as a mechanism to 'tag' topics
for interpretation by application systems for expressing specific user
contexts (access level, user profile etc.) Or also for a quick way for
expressing context without a complete redesign of the topic map design.
In other words: I guess the current very interesting discussion around the
meaning and use of scope will become clearer once topic maps have been
understood by the community to require a similar design approch like for
instance OO modelling.
concerning the ideological debate about whether a topic itself can have
scope - or only topic characteristics should be scopable: I support the 2nd
opinion. I have to admit I havent yet understood what you can gain from
allowing scope to be attached to the topic itself. Maybe someone could
explain this to me. On the other hand I am afraid changing the XTM spec in
this respect might cause a lot of work as it will also affect the topic map
merging rules.
Heiko
------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Heiko Beier - CEO - moresophy GmbH
Brienner Str. 54b - 80333 Munich
Tel: +49-89-523041-71 - Fax: +49-89-523041-89
------------------------------------------------------------
moresophy -> more sophy -> think meta
------------------------------------------------------------
| -----Original Message-----
| From: Nikita Ogievetsky [mailto:nogievet@cogx.com]
| Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:50 PM
| To: xtm-wg@yahoogroups.com
| Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] re topic.scope
|
|
| Piotr,
|
| Scope tends to be very overloaded.
| And this is the source of confusion.
| Its main purpose is to assert a context within which a certain
| statement (association) holds.
| Then people start punting all convenience shortcuts into it and get
| confused.
|
| Topic can not "make sense in a certain context"
| Topic by itself does not make any sense AT ALL!
| Topic's characteristics do.
| And YES you can scope all topic characteristics.
| Lets be clear on this.
|
| As Steve P. says,.
| >Themes specified on a <topic> element are only "inherited" by names
| >and occurrences that are subelements of that element.
|
| So in ISO if you put a <scope> on a <topic> level it will mean that
| all topic characteristics defined by this <topic> element
| "make sense in a certain scope".
|
| But stop, remember that there are might be multiple
| <topic> elements for a single topic (subject) plus associations ...
|
| However, I found it a good practice to use
| typing for hiding topics from certain user groups, for example.
| (similar to Piotr's and Ivan's suggestion, I guess)
|
| --Nikita,
|
| ----------------------------------------------------------
| Nikita Ogievetsky Cogitech Inc
| XML/XSLT/XLink/TopicMaps Consultant
| nogievet@cogx.com -- (917) 406-8734
| http://www.cogx.com Cogito Ergo XML
|
|
|
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "Piotr Kaminski" <pkaminsk@who.net>
| To: <xtm-wg@yahoogroups.com>
| Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 6:17 AM
| Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] re topic.scope
|
|
| > I have a potentially silly suggestion to make:
| >
| > For topics, does type classification not serve the same purpose as Ivan
| > would like scopes to serve?
| >
| > So if a topic only makes sense in a certain "context", just make that
| > context into a class, and make sure the topic is of that class,
| and others
| > that don't belong in the context aren't. It would be the class of "all
| > things that make sense in <fill-in-the-blank> context>.
| >
| > The obvious problem with this interpretation is that the topics' classes
| > will not match the associations' scopes (unless a topic can be both a
| class
| > and a scope simultaneously? hmm...). Which of course brings up another
| > suggestion: why have separate concepts of class and scope for
| associations?
| > Just allow them to have multiple types, and use these for
| scoping. What's
| > the big difference between classes and scopes that would prevent this?
| >
| > Steve P.: I have not yet read your paper on scoping, though it's on my
| > immediate to-do list. If the answers to my questions are all contained
| > therein, don't waste your time answering my rantings. :-)
| >
| > -- P.
| >
| > --
| > Piotr Kaminski <pkaminsk@who.net> http://www.csr.uvic.ca/~pkaminsk
| > "It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance."
| >
| >
| >
| >
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|
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