Re: [Tm4j-developers] The Future of TM4Web

[Jack P. <jac...@th...>]

Kal, you are not even close to "mad" contemplating this.  Here is why, in 
my view:

Recently, a bunch of friends and I were treated to a demonstration of Zope 
with Plone.  I confess, it was awesome, something any Web developer would 
drool over. I understand there's even a topic map engine for Zope in the works.

I was asked how come there isn't something equivalent in Javaland.  Well, 
there is, almost, and it is Cocoon, or maybe JBoss, or maybe JBoss/Cocoon. 
But, they are not even close.  Here is why I think that is so.

The demonstration was given by a fellow who ostensibly is not a programmer. 
He is a Web developer, probably skilled in HTML and so forth. The issue is 
this: the work is already done. Install Zope, drop Plone into it, and you 
pretty much have nearly everything you need. No need to get involved with 
XML of any kind. Just go to the control panel and set things up the way you 
want them.

I would be more than happy to stand corrected, but for now, in my view, 
there's nothing like that (in terms of completeness) running in Java.  If 
Zope gets a potent topic map engine, then the floodgate of topic map 
applications that I think lies waiting to open will do so.

 From the standpoint of content management, there are a bunch of really 
slick apps out there (dspace, wynona, etc) all of which are more than ready 
for topic map implementation, none of which is as "light switch simple" as 
the Zope/Plone ensemble.

Therefore, I am very much interested in the kinds of things you are 
speaking about here. Particularly, I look at it this way.

JBoss advertises scalability. Cocoon advertises completeness. Put the two 
together, strip out the unnecessary J2EE stuff, and you're quite close to a 
good starting point. But, where are the applications?  There was an article 
on building portals with Cocoon. That's a pretty good start. There's 
supposed to be a Wiki for Cocoon. I haven't seen it working. There's 
supposed to be a blog engine for Cocoon. I haven't seen it working.

My view is, therefore, that we must strive to complete the ensemble of Web 
applications available in Java, and do so with topic maps as the 
underlying, centralizing glue that binds. TM4J strikes me as a powerful way 
to make that happen.  What the world (according to Park) is waiting for is 
a light-switch easy Webportal engine built around topic maps. No user of 
that engine should ever have to touch HTML, XML, XTM, or any such 
technology unless they want to. Zope/Plone is very close (but, no cigar 
quite yet) to that level of development.

The world (still according to Park) probably needs some of the collective 
sensemaking ideas I have outlined elsewhere (e.g. 
http://www.nexist.org/sc2002/). These should, I think, be built-in 
functionality that resides as part of the topic map facility.

The projects you enumerate below are, to me, clear evidence that we are 
already aimed in the right direction.  What's missing? I think what's 
missing is an attempt to integrate those and other emerging projects into a 
light switch easy package.

That's my 0.125 EUROs for the day.
Cheers
Jack

At 11:11 AM 1/23/2003 +0000, Kal Ahmed wrote:
>Apologies for the cross-posting, I just wanted to be sure that I got
>everyone's attention ;-)
>
>A while ago, Florian Haas and Thomas Bauer contributed a package called 
>TM4Web
>to the TM4J Project. This package contains a set of stylesheets for
>converting XTM syntax topic maps into a collection of HTML pages using the
>page-per-topic style of the TM4J.org website.
>
>Separately from that work, I had developed a template-based mechanism for
>creating HTML pages directly from a TM4J TopicMap which works both as a
>servlet and as a stand-alone application.
>
>Separately from that, I have played with Cocoon and the TM4Web stylesheets to
>create a little sample webapp that uses TM4J APIs to extract topic map
>fragments and TM4Web stylesheets to create the HTML output in a Cocoon
>processing pipe.
>
>Separately from *that*, Christoph Frolich, Niko Schmuck and Martin 
>Stockhammer
>are working on TMNav which, while aimed more at the development of GUI tools,
>has a strong web application component with a WS interface and with a
>flexible abstraction and rendering process which would work well in a web
>application.
>
>Separately from all of that, I know that a number of people are using TM4J to
>create web applications using a wide variety of frameworks and toolkits.
>
>What we all have in common is that we are creating web applications for
>presenting and/or modifying topic maps in a browser, but we are taking
>different approaches with different focusses and different strenghts and
>weaknesses.
>
>My feeling is that this is all good.
>
>What I would like to do is to use TM4Web as a banner project for bringing
>together design approaches; patterns for rendering topic maps; utility
>classes and sample tools and applications all with the aim of making it easy
>for developers to find some starting point for their own applications.  This
>is quite a big undertaking and I would like to get an idea about how much
>support there is for this in the community.
>
>Do you think that this approach is a good idea, or would you prefer to see 
>the
>TM4J project produce a single one-size-fits-all solution for topic maps on
>the web ?
>
>Do you have any experience and/or sample code which you might consider
>contributing to TM4Web ?
>
>Am I just mad for even contemplating this ? (probably)
>
>Any thoughts / opinions gratefully received.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Kal
>
>--
>Kal Ahmed, techquila.com
>XML and Topic Map Consultancy
>
>e: ka...@te...
>p: +44 7968 529531
>w: www.techquila.com
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>This SF.NET email is sponsored by:
>SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld http://www.vasoftware.com
>_______________________________________________
>Tm4j-developers mailing list
>Tm4...@li...
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tm4j-developers

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.
Addison-Wesley. Jack Park, Editor. Sam Hunting, Technical Editor

Build smarter kids globally and you reduce the need for smarter bombs.