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

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

* Florian G. Haas
| 
| Lars Marius frequently uses <subjectIndicatorRef>'s whose xlink:href
| actually resolve to a <topic> element and *could* therefore also be
| replaced by <topicRef>'s [...]

That is correct.
 
| 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)?

The choice of <subjectIndicatorRef> over <topicRef> was made
consciously. I use <subjectIndicatorRef> in the following places:

 in <subjectIdentity>

   This is done so that when the topic maps are loaded from somewhere
   other than <URL: http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/ > the topics
   created by loading will have the correct subject indicators, so
   that merging them into other topic maps will cause the correct
   merges. If this isn't done the subject indicators will not be part
   of the topic map.

 in country.xtm in <scope> to refer to language topics defined in
 language.xtm

   <topicRef> elements referring to external documents make topic map
   processors load the external documents. In this case the external
   document is sitting on the web, and so people may want to load
   country.xtm from a local file without getting language.xtm
   downloaded from www.topicmaps.org.

   This is why I use <subjectIndicatorRef>s. These references cause
   the creation of empty topics with the right subject indicator, and
   if one wants to give them characteristics, this can be done by
   merging in language.xtm (loaded from wherever). The subject
   indicators will ensure that merging happens in the right way.

| 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?

No, I agree with you, but there are cases like this one where one
wants to refer to external topics with well-known subject indicators
without necessarily merging in the entire topic map that these
external topics live in. <subjectIndicatorRef> is useful for this
purpose.

| 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...

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

Flames? Why should you be flamed? You're voicing a technical opinion.

--Lars M.


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