[sc34wg3] A new idea for the Topic Maps standard

[Anthony B. Coates]

** Reply to message from "Nikita Ogievetsky" <nogievet@cogx.com> on Wed, 5 Feb
2003 10:37:45 -0800

> Lars suggests translating on the SAM level but I do not think that this is
> such a great idea.
> After all, SAM is a processing model for XTM, is not it?

It depends on what "translating to SAM" means in practice.  If there are
standard language bindings to SAM (e.g. the TMAPI for Java hopes to be just
this), then any data source (XML or not) that can provide that API is
equivalent to an XTM topic map.  This is no different to what happens with XML
now when you consider the SAX & DOM APIs.  You can provide SAX & DOM APIs from
a database or Word document if you want, you don't need to create an
intermediate XML document.  To the consuming application it seems like the
input is just another XML document.  I see no reason why there shouldn't be an
equivalent for Topic Maps.

	Cheers,
		Tony.
====
Anthony B. Coates, Information & Software Architect
mailto:abcoates@TheOffice.net
Reuters Messaging: abcoates.londonmarketsystems.com@reuters.net
====
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FpML AWG Member (Financial Products Markup Language), http://www.fpml.org/