Re: Mapping a UML model to a DTD or Schema

[Robin Cover <robin@isogen.com>]

>> Maybe is a naive question but I'd like to know if there are
>> standard approaches to map a UML class diagram to a DTD or Schema.
>
> [Ken North]
> FYI, Dave Carlson, Kevin Kelly and Peter Chen are scheduled to
> do conceptual modeling sessions in April at XML DevCon 2001.

It's encouraging to hear mention of "conceptual modeling" in
connection with Web/markup conferences; especially heart-warming
to hear "conceptual modeling" and "schema design" in the
same sentence.  My guess is that the syntax-centric
stranglehold will not be broken until there's a conscious focus
on conceptual modeling, accompanied by an unspoken agreement
that XML schemas and other markup syntaxes can readily be
generated from conceptual model notations.

GCA's "Knowledge Technologies 2001" conference supplies more
evidence of shifting focus toward RDF, Topic Maps, etc.

http://www.gca.org/attend/2001_conferences/kt_2001/
"Introducing the Next Technology Revolution"

But there's a danger of losing the big picture.  The
conference literature speaks of the "knowledge management
community" and of "Chief Knowledge Officers" and
"Knowledge Managers" -- I have no idea who these people are.
"Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Modeling
Knowledge Interchange, Knowledge Access and Navigation" --
are all good ideas, but what's the underlying technology,
and how does it support interoperable solutions?  UML
class diagrams are great (for visualizing relationships),
but UML lacks semantics and can't provide an adequate
(rigorous, testable) modeling formalism.  RDF and Topic
Maps are good, but they don't appear to offer a complete
system-level modeling framework for sharable designs and
interoperable (downstream) applications.  So too the other
ontology specification languages.

Conceptual modeling, anyone?

I have created a placeholder for some good articles
 -- which I hope will be forthcoming.  See:

"Conceptual Modeling and Markup Languages"
http://xml.coverpages.org/conceptualModeling.html

Please send nominations for the reference list.

Best wishes,

Robin Cover