Re: [xml-dev] XML and XPATH: How do they work?

[Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com>]

Hi Joe,

I wrote:
> "Navigation should not be part of your datamodel nor dataset, but be a
> separate implementation detail. Here's how I'd do your XML stuff;
> 
> <term id="some.id.x">
>   <label lang="en">Fiddle</label> 
>   <label lang="no">Fele</label>
> </term>
> 
> <term id="some.id.y">
>   <label lang="en">Chin</label>
>   <label lang="no">Hake</label> 
> </term>
> 
> And when you need a relationship between the two;
> 
> <relationship of.type="played.on">
>   <member refid="some.id.x" role="instrument" />
>   <member refid=" some.id.y" role="method" />
> </relationship>

On 6/30/05, Joe Schaffner <schaffner.joe@gmail.com> wrote:
> I like your language, but I don't like making up names when they already
> exist. Each verb names its meaning already. 

You can use your verb just as they are. What I'm more talking about is
giving each little schema (as in a microformat, really) an id which
you can refer to willy-nilly when you need it. It is not about making
stuff up if you've got some stuff that already makes sense, but what
it is about is using that stuff you've got the most optimally.

An ontology can be many things, but in your case it isn't the verbs
themselves but more what goes around them, like 'irregular verb',
'group', etc, meaning any other type of relationship you wish to
express.

> To me, "navigation" does not necessarily mean visual transversal. My program
> might like to iterate on the list, so the list would have to be named,
> formally, as in an XLink, whatever that might look like. 

Any XML capable processor can do this without any problems, and this
is why I said you should make a clear distinction between your XML as
data and as visual system. By simply mapping all relationships between
your verbs you can later choose to create any type of interface or
processing rules, even using xPath.

> Pointers are indeed "hardwired" but they are intuitive, at least to me. 

Have no idea why you feel they must be "hardwired", nor do I
understand what you actually mean by that. :) Any example?

> I'm working with a single data type which applies to all the verbs. I don't
> really want to define subtypes which merely model the structure of the
> verbs. The structure is basically the same for all verbs. Intransitives have
> no passive, Transitives should... some verbs are defective -- missing
> principal parts, but the missing parts can be null. 

Then basically you create a typed dataset (verb X is of type Y) which
maps the relationships intrisically. It really is the same thing;

relationship X 
   between verb A
   and type B
  
is the same as

  verb A is of type B

with the difference that you can't refer to that relationship in the
latter example (you do this through reification in RDF and Topic Maps
using the first example).

> The navigation occurs on two levels, the visual level, the one we're already
> familiar with using HTML, and another, in fact, any number of logical
> levels. A verb could belong to many semantic categories, like transitives,
> intransitives, emotion, motion, being, mood, love, hate etc. 

To me this sounds like faceted navigation system based on object
properties. Even if you have your verbs, surely you realise you must
define those properties? :)

> In other words, I'd like to keep the formal model as simple as possible: I
> want as few "types" as possible, maybe only one. Then I merely create named,
> linked lists which tie all the instances together. 

Like ;
verb a, verb b, verb c, verb d (they're all just 'verbs')

and then
"silly verbs" : verb a, verb d
"cool verbs" : verb a, verb c
"funny verbs" : verb b, verb c, verb d

?

If so, that is no different to ;

verb a : isSilly, isCool
verb b : isFunny
verb c : isCool, isFunny
verb d : isSilly, isFunny

> A processing program
> would follow the links on a named list. Any verb belonging to the (semantic)
> category would be a node in the list. Any node can belong to as many lists
> as I want. The name of the list would be the name of the category. 

What you're describing is just objects with properties, and you have
no semantics betwen your verbs at all (apart from them being typed).
Is that what you want?


Alexander
-- 
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
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