[Tm4j-developers] URN support in 0.7.0

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

Hi again!

One of the outstanding tasks for 0.7.0 is to implement URN support. I am =
now=20
in doubt as to whether to do this completely. Here are my reasons:

1) I don't know of many people making use of URNs rather than URLs for su=
bject=20
addressing.
2) The current URILocator interface *kind of* supports URNs - after all a=
 URN=20
will parse as a URI, it is just that resolveRelative is meaningless for U=
RNs=20
(and probably won't work correctly with the current URILocator implementa=
tion=20
- though I haven't checked). It is possible for TM4J currently to read a=20
topic map containing URIs and to perform the usual merging operations bas=
ed=20
on those and to export them again. The real problems is in the API which =
is=20
not flexible enough to handle a non-hierarchical URI
3) With the advent of the URI class in JDK1.4, the whole org.tm4j.net pac=
kage=20
needs to be re-examined.

I'm sure that some of you will argue with (1), but I am also equally sure=
 that=20
the provisions in TM4J as it stands (as detailed in (2) ) are probably=20
sufficient. I would definitely like to hear from you if they are not.

As for (3) - there is a wider discussion to be had about TM4J 1.0 (yes, I=
 am=20
thinking that after 0.7 we should finally make the big push to 1.0 :-) an=
d=20
JDK 1.4. That is probably big enough to be in a separate thread...

Cheers,

Kal

--=20
Kal Ahmed, tecqhuila.com
XML and Topic Map Consultancy

e: ka...@te...
p: +44 7968 529531
w: www.techquila.com