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Interestingly the XML serialisation of Topic Maps (XTM:
http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/) uses XLink.
I have just started using Topic Maps to manage action items and their
associated documentation, for a standards development group I belong
to. We hope to end up using Topic Maps to help us manage the
documentation and documentation changes associated with standards
development, but it is very early days yet. So far so good though.
I am using Ontopia's free Omnigator (http://www.ontopia.net/) software
to get us started. It is easy to set up and gives a nice visualisation
of your Topic Maps. There are also some very good example Topic Maps
(including ones for managing the issues that arose during the
development of the XTM standard).
All the best
Mark Seaborne
On 14 Jan 2005, at 18:41, Nadia.Swaby@pwc.ca wrote:
>
> Hrrmm...
>
> I was just looking at the article "What is topic maps?" on xml.com and
> thinking that maybe it would be a better way to go. There has been
> talk in
> the past few days of creating some sort of link database. The problem
> we
> are hoping to solve is "What if a document gets obsoleted, superseded,
> or
> removed. How can we make sure all the documents that link to it don't
> link
> to a dead end?" Anyone have any opinions on topic maps?
>
>
>
>
>
> "Bullard, Claude
> L (Len)" To:
> Nadia.Swaby@pwc.ca, xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> <len.bullard@inte cc:
> rgraph.com> Subject: RE: [xml-dev]
> XLink - anyone using?
>
> 2005-01-14 13:12
>
>
>
>
>
>
> A quick link primer:
>
> 1. Links as URIs identify a location of a resource (usually a file
> with
> data of some type, can be a location within a file of some type, etc).
> These
>
> are untyped links, meaning, they don't declare a relationship.
>
> 2. Typed links name a relationship. A bibliographic reference is a
> typed link. An inverted index is a typed link.
>
> 3. Links may have directionality regardless of the mechanical
> implementation
> of the link. Some links point in one direction (an HTML hyperlink).
> Some
> go in two directions (say, Next/Back).
>
> 4. Links may have multiple targets. The index at the back of the book
> (word plus every location word is used) is an example. Is that
> multiple
> links or one link with multiple targets? That's an implementation
> detail.
>
> 5. A link may only name a relationship or it may be the control for
> navigating among instances. The major confusion in linking concepts
> is this aspect.
>
> XLinks go beyond identification or the resource and enable typed links.
> Given that a link for the web is the URI, the rest of that information
> is annotative, that is, a link processor of some kind might use it.
> For example, you often want the links in the bibliography, the links
> in the table of contents, and the links in the index at the back of
> a book to be displayed differently, and certainly, to behave
> differently.
> A click on a table of contents should take you to the location of that
> resource. A click on the inverted index might display all, none or
> one of the resources.
>
> So linking as a concept seems simple, but it has overtones of identity,
> display and control over navigation. Not everyone agrees or can agree
> on how that fits into a single set of concepts or implementations.
> Also,
> most anything one can do with a multiway link, one can do with multiple
> simple links given some control to display it in. The classic example
> is a popup menu.
>
> So XLink is neat conceptually, but in practical use, there are easy
> ways
> to do the same thing without using XLinks. Without a compelling use
> case
> shared by a near universal set in the user community, it gets very
> little
> play outside implementations of link data bases (and again, you should
> look at the inverted index and compare that to systems that implement
> topic maps).
>
> len
>
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