Re: [xml-dev] Topic Maps - current state of the art?

[gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com]

At 2013-10-20 11:14 +1100, Stephen Cameron wrote:
> Topic Maps are something I have just discovered!
They've been around since the SGML days.  A useful and powerful concept.

> Is this because I've not been listening, or, are they something 
> thats been tried and found wanting? A second-hand book 
> <http://www.amazon.com/XML-Topic-Maps-Creating-Using/dp/0201749602/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382227843&sr=1-1&keywords=topic+maps>XML 
> Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web is available 
> on <http://amazon.com>amazon.com for $0.01. You cannot get cheaper, 
> so this might be an indication of the later.
Ummmm ... I gather from its designer/implementer that information 
maintenance for the entire US nuclear arsenal is managed using Topic Maps:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.109.5995&rep=rep1&type=pdf

And I heard that the entire Norwegian public education curriculum was 
something else being managed using Topic Maps ... a search just now 
found a reference to that here:

http://www.lornet.ca/portals/10/i2lor07_proceedings/monday/papers/1-1.pdf

> Thanks for any insights you can offer.
I think it is just a matter of the right technology for the right 
kind and scope of problem.  You could write a topic map to manage a 
book index, but it is a bit of overkill so I'm not sure anyone would do it.

Disclaimer: I was on the committee and a member of the original XML 
Topic Maps effort.  Note that the role XML plays in Topic Maps is 
just as a serialization of the conceptual Topic Map that contains all 
of the relationships.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . . . Ken


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