Topic Map Design Patterns For Information Architecture by Kal Ahmed.
Abstract:
Software design patterns give programmers a high level language for discussing the design of software applications. For topic maps to achieve widespread adoption and improved interoperability, a set of topic map design patterns are needed to codify existing practices and make them available to a wider audience. Combining structured descriptions of design patterns with Published Subject Identifiers would enable not only the reuse of design approaches but also encourage the use of common sets of PSIs. This paper presents the arguments for developing and publishing topic map design patterns and a proposed notation for diagramming design patterns based on UML. Finally, by way of examples, the paper presents some design patterns for representation of traditional classification schemes such as thesauri, hierarchical and faceted classification.
Kal used UML to model the design patterns and their constraints. (TMCL, the Topic Map Constraint Language, had yet to be written. (TMCL)
For visual modeling purposes, are there any constraints in TMCL that cannot be modeled in UML?
I ask because I have not compared TMCL to UML.
Using UML to express the generic constraints in TMCL would be a first step towards answering the need for topic maps design patterns.