Re: [topicmaps-comment] TMs & XTM [Was: skills to create topic maps]

[Robert Barta <rho@bigpond.net.au>]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 03:02:44PM +0900, Mary Nishikawa wrote:
> I am at the exploratory stage now with Topic Maps, .......................
> .................................................. and have been 
> wondering  about  how to get a huge classification system with thousands of 
> topics into topic maps (I would guess that it would not be practical  to 
> work with only one TM for this number of topics).

If those topics have a structure, why not exploit it?

What we do here is to put everything into databases as soon as there
is some inherent structure in the data. This database is then converted
on-the-fly into a TM representation.

> I would also like to work with XTM, but I haven't done so yet, so I am 
> interesting in learning how you are creating your maps using LTM.   For 
> those using XTM to create topic maps,  I see the advantages of having 
> everyone using the same dtd for interchangeability,

You only need a DTD/XML schema if you are using XML to constrain its (syntactic)
structure. XMLSpy is suitable for that although it will not warn you (or does it?)
if you have a typo in your resourceRef internal references. You will
need a development environment to get this sort of quality assurance.

> ................................................. but the ability to use 
> an abstract element declaration for each type that can be used to design 
> one's own schema to create a customized topic map has advantages  that 
> shouldn't be missed (I have to say I am looking for  colleagues to 
> try  this approach out). Thinking about how to create the schema helps me 
> organize my information better, which is what I am most interested in.

I seriously doubt (please correct/brutalize/... me in case) that an XML
schema instance allows to express _semantical_ constraints on a map.

> Related to the original posting [skills to create topic maps]  if someone 
> were to take this approach, I think the TM creator would need to be quite 
> familiar with the W3C XML Schema structures and datatypes, namespaces,  and 
> Xlink for a start

My students here have almost no idea about all this, still some of them
create valuable maps even as absolute beginners. We send them on a mission
after blessing them with

  http://topicmaps.bond.edu.au/tutorial1/
  http://topicmaps.bond.edu.au/astma/astma.html

> ............................. Yet again, if we can figure out how to map 
> what is in the database into the TM...

Perl is a precious friend here.

\rho