RE: resources and URIs

My head starts hurting very quickly in the land of resources, but I wonder
if there may be something to be gained from moving the emphasis more towards
the Topic Map viewpoint :

[[
RDF is resource-centric, whereas topic maps are subject-centric. In RDF one
starts with information resources and attaches metadata structures to them;
in topic maps, the primary focus is the subjects that the information is
"about". So in one sense RDF and topic maps have diametrically opposed
points of view. (To some extent, this difference in focus parallels that
between document languages, such as the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules,
AACR, and subject languages, such as the Library of Congress Subject
Headings, LCSH, in the domain of library science.) However, "resource" in
RDF and "subject" in topic maps can be regarded as synonyms, since
information resources can (also) be "subjects" in topic maps and "resources"
in RDF do not have to be addressable information resources - so the
difference is dialectical rather than diametrical.
]]

My reading of this (loosely) is that TM topics are a step abstracted from
the current view of resources, but allow the same kind of usage, the topic
having a subject address or a subject indicator to disambiguate its role. I
wonder if the definition of resource could take a step back too, to remove
the identifier/representation confusion.

from
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/rdf.html

there's a more in-depth comparison at :

Topic maps, RDF, DAML, OIL : A comparison (Lars Marius Garshol)
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tmrdfoildaml.html

Cheers,
Danny.

----

http://dannyayers.com

Received on Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:53:04 UTC