Re: [Tm4j-developers] how are we different to DAML

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

At 19:55 21/02/2002 -0800, Jack Park wrote:
>At 10:28 AM 2/22/2002 +1100, Smith, Tim wrote:
>>I have been talking to a DAML guy here at work, and he seems to be saying
>>that DAML and TMs are pretty much the same.
>>Obviously I am missing something...
>>Can anyone tell me why TMs are superior to DAML?
>>Thanks
>>Tim Smith
>
>Tim,
>
>I'm sure Kal will have plenty to say about this, but my view is that they 
>are not really the same thing at all.
>
>True, they both define graph structures.
>True, they both deal with the same kinds of objects, mostly ontological 
>entities of one sort or another.
>
>But, they serve different purposes.  Topic Maps were invented as a means 
>of representating and navigating information resources, while DAML was 
>invented to represent those resources, and do that to a much finer 
>granularity than is easily accomplished with XTM.
>
>True, you can define lots of relations and use PSIs to do so.  That is to 
>say, one way or the other, you can make XTM serve the same purpose as 
>DAML/OIL, and, while I haven't spent any time trying to do so, I imagine 
>that you can find a way to use DAML as a navigational tool.
>
>Nobody is superior to the other, IMHO.  Rather, each technology, XTM and 
>DAML have contexts in which one is better suited: representation of 
>a  information resource space with XTM, and representation of an ontology 
>within that space with DAML.
>
>Cheers
>Jack

I agree with Jack. And I also think that he has hit the nail on the head 
with his analysis of the relative "purposes" of the two technologies. It is 
possible to use Topic Maps to describe minutiae about information 
resources, and it is possible to use DAML to map conceptual relationships 
between resources. But in practice, having both tools in your toolbox makes 
sense.

In fact, Jack hasn't left me with much to add ;-)

I would say one thing - ignore the markup argument. IMHO, the principle 
part of DAML is the specification of the primitives with which one can 
construct a rigorously defined ontology. The less significant part of DAML 
is its representation as RDF. In fact, if I were wanting to represent an 
ontology with a high degree of formal rigor (e.g. for later applying 
inference tools to the data set), then I would probably look at using 
DAML+OIL as an adjunct to the XTM map of the instance data. I could then 
use transformation tools (XSLT ?) to generate an XTM representation of the 
DAML+OIL ontology definition, while still using DAML+OIL tools to define my 
ontology and XTM tools to map it to real world resources.

Cheers,

Kal