[sc34wg3] CTM: The arguments for standardization

[Robert Barta]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 09:59:55AM +0200, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> | 1) If TMQL does not support update using XTM, will that alienate
> | those users who prefer XTM to a compact syntax ? How much effort
> | would it be for TMQL to support both syntaxes for update operations?
> 
> Those are good questions, and I have to confess I don't fully know the
> answers to them. Whether a non-XTM syntax for additions will alienate
> users is difficult to answer because these users will already be
> working inside a non-XML syntax (TMQL). Most likely something like
> 
>   INSERT <topic id="foo">...</topic>
> 
> is one thing, but TMQL also has topic map constructors for producing
> topic map output, and quite possibly also TM->TM transforms, which
> means CTM gets mixed quite deeply into TMQL. So I don't really know;
> those users who prefer writing their topic maps in XTM might be able
> to help us here.

I see this pretty relaxed. In AsTMa? I had experimented with
XTM output. In TMQL itself this comes quite natural:

     using xtm for http://theuglybeast/xtm/1.1
     .....
     return
        <xtm:topic id="{$a}">
           ...
           <xtm:baseNameString>Look ma, XTM</xtm:baseNameString>
        </xtm:topic>

So I would assume we can leverage that somehow into the UPDATE
language.

> | 2) I am assuming that your statement that:
> | 
> | "implementor who wants to minimize the investment would probably do
> | well to implement CTM and drop XTM"
> | 
> | is a bit of rhetoric rather than a serious suggestion from the
> | editor of the XTM standard.
> 
> It *was* rhetoric, certainly, but not entirely vacuous. The point was
> that CTM is likely to be quite easy to implement, and almost certainly
> easier than XTM.

I have implemented all notations, LTM, AsTMa= and various incarnations
of XTM and have to second this.

I would also claim that CTM parsers are almost one magnitude faster in
parsing topic map instance.  But of course, people who can afford
stronger computers will not be impressed either....;-)

\rho