Supplement: was Re: One quibble re: topicmap

Marijane,

Supplement to my prior post:

On 12/08/2011 06:53 PM, Patrick Durusau wrote:

<snip>

> 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.
>
The other aspect of topic maps is that other people may (or may not) 
recognize our explanations (read identifications) as being about the 
same subjects as their explanations (read identifications). People do 
that all the time.

With topic maps represented in digital form, the options for such 
recognition are greatly limited, but still possible.

All topic maps make choices about the explanations/identifications they 
can represent.

The history of data representation, aside from topic maps, has been one 
of "...everyone can, will, must use *my* system of 
explanation/identification...."

There are large ones, like Dublin Core and there are small ones in the 
databases that your accounting department has created for their own use.

But none of them encompass all the subjects that could be identified, 
not to mention that no system can account for all the subjects that have 
prior identifications.

For some purposes, your local accounting department for example, to have 
its own internal identification of subjects. It is cost effective, suits 
the needs at hand and making it capable of mapping to other 
identifications has no value. The larger organization's accounting 
structure might disagree but that would be at their expense.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick



-- 

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

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