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Re: Topic Maps and AF

• From: "B. Tommie Usdin" <btusdin@m...>
• To: xml-dev <xml-dev@x...>
• Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 18:58:52 -0500

David Wang wrote (in part):

 ...  it seems odd that Topic maps, being newsworthy, needs and
>rides on top of AF, which seems to not be newsworthy (depending on
>viewpoints, but let's speculate for the moment).  Any reasons?
>

This doesn't seem at all odd to me.

It is far easier for people to understand, and thus get excited about, a
specific application than a general concept.  Architectural Forms is an
interesting concept, but it isn't something most people can imagine using
to solve real world problems right now.  Topic Maps is a much more concrete
notion; people understand the need and can easily imagine how they might
want to use a Topic Map.  Thus Topic Maps are more  newsworthy than
Architectural Forms; they are less abstract and easier to understand.

Newsworthiness is a measure of excitement not of value, and may be
inversely proportional to abstracteness.

-- Tommie


======================================================================
B. Tommie Usdin                        mailto:btusdin@m...
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                           Phone: 301/315-9631
Suite 207                                    Direct Line: 301/315-9634
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML

======================================================================



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