I was reading a topic map paper that complained about difficulties processing XTM with XML tools.
In fact, the article says, you need a topic map engine to process XTM effectively.
Was that a surprise?
What if I ran across a SQL database dump with tables, which contain foreign keys, etc.
I would be bet that I need a SQL database engine to process it effectively.
Would that be a surprise?
XTM, is and was an interchange syntax for topic maps.
That means people can interchange XTM topic maps with the expectation of a defined set of semantics, for processing with, wait for it, a topic map engine.
I write this because I think XML is under-recognized as a declarative semantic format and too casually viewed as a basis for processing.
There are cases where XML can be used as a basis for processing, I don’t know, tweets for example. 😉
Seriously, a file being written in XML (think word processing formats), doesn’t automatically make XML tools the best processing choice.
XTM is one of those cases, but that wasn’t a surprise.