Re: One quibble re: topicmap

Marijane,

On 12/08/2011 12:40 PM, marijane white wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Alexander Johannesen 
> <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
>     Topic Maps is too good for too many things, and just seems to fall
>     into the "too good to be true" bucket before people give it a chance.
>
>
> This is awfully close to the reaction I got from a coworker at my new 
> job when I shared Patrick's "Babel and Topic Maps" paper with them 
> last week.
>

It may be that people aren't comfortable with the full generality of 
topic maps. That is they expect to be able to put things into labeled 
compartments or boxes and know what to expect from each one. You would 
not, as Dilbert's boss tried, to take over and land a plane using 
"Excel." ;-) Because that is the wrong program for that purpose.

What are topic maps about, really?

Topic maps are how we choose to express explanations via computer systems.

It is the taking explanations, "go ask Joe," go ask Alice," etc. and 
squeezing them into representations in systems that are less capable 
than a piece of paper.*

When you write a topic map, you are capturing an explanation of how you 
identify some set of subjects, in hopes that someone else will recognize 
those subjects.

But since you can't go along with the explanation, topic maps also give 
you the ability to explain the explanation as it were. To help people 
recognize the subjects represented by keys.

Topic maps in a very real sense are about capturing how we would explain 
something, if someone asked us, so they would understand what we meant. 
We do it all day long in a variety of contexts. It's the writing it down 
for something far less capable than we are that gets hard.

Hope you are enjoying the new job!

Patrick

*I say computers are less capable than a piece of paper. For example, 
how many writing directions do you think a computer has? If you said one 
(1) you would be correct. If you also guessed left to right, you would 
be correct again. That a computer can display different writing 
directions is a display capability. It is still reading left to right 
and humoring you by displaying some other writing direction.

A piece of paper, on the other hand, can start and stop writing in any 
direction a script can be written.

There are other ways in which a piece of paper exceeds even the coming 
generation of pentaflop systems. Mark off ten minutes on the clock. How 
many can you think of?



>
> -marijane
>
>
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-- 
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)
OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB) - member

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

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