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[ba-unrev-talk] Book on Topic Maps


Delightful! At last, a book has become available which explains
the XTM (XML Topic Maps) standard -- and one which was written
by our very own Jack Park!    (01)

    Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web,
    by Jack Park. ISBN #0201749602    (02)

My copy is on the way.    (03)

Background
--------------
XTM is an ontology-definition mechansim which is intuitively
more appealing and easier to visualize than RDF. Like HTML
or XML, it can be reasonably read and edited in plain-text form.
(You can edit RDF, too, but understanding what you have in
plain text form is nearly impossible for any non-trivial ontology.)    (04)

Theren lies the promise of XTM. However, my early attempts
to guage its usefulness ran into problems. Directing a series of
"how would you do this?" questions to a collection of experts
invariably led to a range of responses:
   * That's impossible.
   * That's trivial.
   * That's possible, but difficult.    (05)

Lacking the background to deciper the responses and formulate
my own conclusions, I decided that perhaps Topic Maps were
not yet really ready for prime time.    (06)

This book may well herald the arrival of Topic Maps on the
"prime time" stage. At the very least, it should generate enough
understanding to make it possible to follow arguments about
how it can be used.    (07)