RE: [xtm-wg] New language.xtm and country.xtm proposals

["Florian G. Haas" <f.g.haas@gmx.net>]

Hello all,

now for something completely different -- and for the purpose of getting
away from personal animosities, wounded egos, and the like -- I'd like to
raise a point about the applicational or implementational suitability of
these two topic maps. Maybe this is not a big deal, but I'd be happy to read
some of your thoughts.


Lars Marius frequently uses <subjectIndicatorRef>'s whose xlink:href
actually resolve to a <topic> element and *could* therefore also be replaced
by <topicRef>'s (at least the spec says so, para 3.2.1). Now I'm fully aware
that that's not a requirement and that without question, the
<subjectIndicatorRef> element is syntactically fine.

In my humble opinion, though, using a <subjectIndicatorRef> when when one
could also use a <topicRef> is a questionable practice. In a nutshell, how
is an application supposed to be able to discern what actually points to a
<topic> (and can therefore be resolved, a <baseName> in the user's favorite
<scope> can be selected, and a #display variant displayed, for example), and
what doesn't (and in fact, may not even point to an XML node)?

Does anyone agree with me that it's *desirable* to use a <topicRef> for this
purpose where you can, and resort to a <subjectIndicatorRef> if you must? Or
am I completely out to lunch?


That being said, I'd like to voice a personal opinion about the discussion
and approval process of country.xtm and language.xtm. Firstly, it's good to
see that there's some progress. Secondly, I'm not personally acquainted with
either of the two gladiators involved, and I firmly believe that whatever
selection is eventually made, it had best not be influenced by any
particular person's authorship. IMHO, what should be selected should be the
best available. And then of course there's the option of calmly sitting down
and comparing the two versions, and maybe creating a third one that combines
the advantages of both...

Ceterum censeo: Now I'm happy to accept any flames. :-)

Take care
-- Florian

----------------------------------------------
Florian G. Haas
FHS Informationsberufe, Eisenstadt, Austria
http://info.fh-eisenstadt.ac.at/haasf/



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