XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web

The Future of Topic Maps

The State of the Paradigm

In the history of science, a paradigm associates a kind of problem, a theory for solving such problems, and a canonical example of solving the problem (often with a heroic figure as protagonist). Paradigms shift in historical time. For example, when Kepler calculated the elliptical orbits of the planets round the sun, this was a paradigm shift from Ptolemy, who calculated epicycles of the sun and planets round the Earth. Following paradigm shifts, the newly introduced problem-solving techniques are elaborated and formalized.

The topic map community has entered such a period of consolidation. As Michel Biezunski wrote in Chapter 2, topic maps originated in the problem of formalizing and interchanging ...