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RDF and Topic Maps was: RE: Services-based automation

• From: Jonathan Borden <jborden@m...>
• To: Martin Bryan <mtbryan@s...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 06:37:44 -0400

Martin Bryan wrote:

> Jonathan
> >
> > It seems there is overlap between the capabilities of RDF and
> Topic Maps,
> > which is one reason many people are hoping that the two efforts can be
> > integrated.
>
> I'm in the process of writing an XML Schema that maps Topic Maps
> to XLink in a logical manner. Hopefully this will help. But you
> must not confuse the RDF Description with Topic Maps. RDF simply
> assigns Metadata to resources. It cannot be used to name nodes
> within resources, or to define the relationships between types of
> nodes,

??? why not ??? RDF names nodes with ID/rdf:ID and rdf:about, and defines
relationships with arcs. Using a URI which has a fragment identifier of the
form #xpointer() you can identify 'nodes within resources'. Nodes are
themselves resources.

> which is what Topic Maps are all about (as well as
> allowing you to assign metadata to resources in the form of facet values).
>

The danger is that this degenerates into a classic language war. From my
standpoint, not really having a vested interest in either TM, XLink or RDF,
one can probably get the job done with any of the above + a certain amount
of domain specific code. The big win is getting people to agree on common
formats which drives the otherwise ad-hoc domain specific code to become
widely available, open source, de facto standardized etc.

Jonathan Borden
The Open Healthcare Group
http://www.openhealth.org

• References:
  • Re: Services-based automation (WAS RE: Realistic proposals to the W3C?)
    • From: Martin Bryan <mtbryan@s...>

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