Re: Topic maps and ordinary people

Simon,

On 6/17/2011 9:02 AM, Simon Grant wrote:
> Patrick and all
>
> Thanks for all these fascinating replies... :-)
> You certainly make some very apt points.
>
> On 17 June 2011 13:32, Patrick Durusau <patrick-Q/[email protected] 
> <mailto:patrick-Q/[email protected]>> wrote:
>
>     I suspect part of the problem is that we have been searching for
>     *the* convincing explanation, as opposed to finding any number of
>     convincing explanations for people in different circumstances.
>
>
> I was originally (and still am) thinking along slightly different 
> lines. I fully recognise that there is no one "the" convincing 
> explanation. But rather than dividing the space between people in 
> different circumstances, I'm suggesting treating the issue as one of 
> education, and indeed personal development in conceptual 
> sophistication. One comes across these kinds of challenges in teaching 
> mathematics, or (closer to home) programming, very often.
>
> What I am asking, then, is more or less this: does TM provide a more 
> fruitful approach (than other technologies) to devising a *set of 
> stages* of understanding, each of which can be mastered and which has 
> some reasonable motivation for people generally -- that is the kind of 
> approach that I think could have a better chance of getting somewhere.
>
> Could there be such a set of stages acting as a ladder? Contemporary 
> school mathematics has been taught for maybe 300 years, so they have 
> quite some lead, but could part of the TM community be up to doing 
> this much quicker, perhaps with the help of .... .... ... topic maps?
>
Interesting thought.

I'm not sure.

In part because it depends on what you want a topic map to do?

If you are searching for genomic information, you really want to exclude 
part identifiers that have the same strings for names. That isn't a 
stage, it is a requirement for the map that some things be excluded and 
other included.

Not sure how to make that into a stage of using/understanding topic maps.

I suppose you could say:

1) Identity subjects with URIs that point to webpages - 1st stage

2) Identify subjects with multiple properties, that can include #1 - 2nd 
stage (this would include associations)

3) Identify subjects with 1 and 2 and the ancestor subjects that compose 
1 and 2 - 3rd stage

One advantage of #1 over RDF is that you don't have all the 303 nonsense 
that the W3C TAG is now debating. Maybe in another ten years they will 
realize that addresses can be subjects as well (whether dereferenced or 
not) and they will resolve that poorly.

Closer, farther away from a useful direction?

Hope you are having in a great day!

Patrick














> Best wishes
>
> Simon
>
> -- 
> Simon Grant
> +44 7710031657
> http://www.simongrant.org/home.html

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick-Q/[email protected]
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
Homepage: http://www.durusau.net
Twitter: patrickDurusau

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