RE: Topic Maps Graph in XML, with API

I think the DOM API as a accessor to topic maps is useful up to a point but
ultimately will not convey the true functional semantics that are in
TopicMaps. It will still be necessary to have Semantic Topic Map API even if
under the hood it is implemented in terms of the DOM - for many of the
multidimensional aspects of TopicMap query and access this will not scale.

Simply things like topic.getNameInScope(ScopeSet) will not be supported by
the DOM. And it is this and many other methods that will actually make the
model useful. A topic is a topic a DOM Node is a dom node it is not a topic.
That may sound obvious but there is a difference.

graham

Michel wrote:

Steve N. was taken aback by Michel's proposal, because
it resonated so strongly with the reasonableness of
Jonathan's plea.  It also occurred to him that, given
the right XML interchange structure for topic maps, no
special API would be needed in order to use a topic map
graph.  The simplest DOM API would be a perfectly
adequate topic map browser, if only the XML rendition
of a topic map graph would be designed in such a way as
to support the browsing of topic map information.



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Received on Wednesday, 27 June 2001 09:56:43 UTC