[sc34wg3] Documenting merging rules in TMDM .. and unmerging too

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Michel Biezunski
| 
| Good to see that you are open to the idea, Lars. 

Describing me as open to the idea of completely redoing the whole plan
for the topic map standards family would definitely be an exaggeration.

Maybe it's useful if I describe how I see things now:

 - TMDM is very nearly finished, as I see it. What remains is mostly
   the formalities and tying up scope & markup representation.

 - XTM is not quite as finished, but definitely not far behind.

 - For TMQL I hope we can pick an evaluation model and start work on
   the language itself in or immediately after Amsterdam.

 - I think Graham sees TMCL as being in a similar state.

 - Outside ISO the standard Java API to topic maps (TMAPI) is on the
   verge of being finished, and informal work is proceeding on remote
   access protocols.

Any major changes to TMDM at this point would freeze progress on all
of these other projects, so for me it would take extraordinarily
powerful arguments to argue that this should be considered.

| It would certainly be worthwhile to reconsider. Making a clear
| distinction such as the one proposed by Bernard between the levels
| we are addressing would strenghten the different parts rather than
| weaken them. 

I didn't read Bernard's proposal this way, nor am I clear on which
levels it is you are referring to.

| The difference between the declarative parts and the operational
| parts is at the heart of both SGML and XML and that is I think why
| this family of standards have been so successful. If we could
| succeed in doing something similar for the semantic part, wouldn't
| that be great?

To be honest I have no idea what it is you are referring to, so I
can't really answer that.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >