Subject Oriented Computing - Topic Maps and management of subject
proxies
It is surprising that modern desktop operating
systems continue to ignore fundamental aspect of information processing, it's
subject orientation.
Computers become better and better in helping people
to create/edit/transmit information resources. Today we can easily manipulate
resources of different types including pictures and music. But we still have
minimum support for managing subjects of our interests. The main computing
paradigm continues to be resource and application-centric.
Let's say that I participate in
projects and I need to keep track of different information resources related to
these projects. How can I do it now? I will probably create a spreadsheet and
list project names with some summary information (start, finish dates, project
manager, team members). I also can create subfolders on my hard drive for each
project and try to keep documents related to each project in corresponding
subfolder. But what if a document is related to several projects? What if I also
would like to keep track of technologies used in each project? And, I am also is
interested in managing information resources about different technologies (news
items, industry reports, reviews, predictions, rumors etc.) Should I create a
new spreadsheet with list of technologies and subfolders?
Hmmm....
In the world of resource and
application-centric computer environments it is "expensive" to manage subjects
of our interests. We are forced to use tools which were not designed for this
task.
Now let's switch to subject
oriented computer environment. In this environment subjects (more precisely
subject proxies) are basis of user experience. It is easy to create proxies for
subjects which we are interested in. It is easy to describe relationships
between subjects. It is easy to connect resources and subject
proxies.
For example, in case of
projects, I can type "projects" in a search box and I will get list of projects
which I am interested in. I can also click on a "new" button to create a subject
proxy for a project which is new or I just started monitoring. If I click on a
project name I can get representation of a subject proxy which can include
summary information and relationships with other subject proxies. I can see, for
example, who is a project manager and project members, what technologies are
used, tasks involved etc. I also can see all resources on my hard drive which
are related to this project: documents, plans, emails, schedules, links. I
easily can navigate to other subject proxies or resources.
The most important thing is that when
I create a subject proxy for a project it becomes available for all applications
on my computer. I can connect any resource managed by any application with this
subject proxy. When I am working with resource my computer helps me to identify
relevant subject proxies. I also can manually connect resource and subject proxy
(for example, by dragging and dropping subject proxy to resource or vise versa).
At any time I can jump between resources and subject proxies, create new and
modify existing
connections.
Applications can register
"actions" available for subjects of specific classes. So when I am looking at
project proxy I can easily jump to specific actions which are related to this
project: create a new task, schedule a meeting, prepare a status report etc.
Applications typically do not "own
subjects". They own and manage some partial information about subjects. But all
these different pieces of information are combined together at "desktop
level".
Topic Maps technology provides
basis for building subject oriented environments. Some of the ideas described
above are implementable right now with Topic Maps. Other ideas require deeper
integration with desktop operating systems.
Posted: Mon - September 6, 2004 at 05:39 AM