Peter Van Dijck asks: "Why is it so hard to lean topicmaps?"

"Topicmap tools are at the topicmap level, not at the real-life usefulness level. In other words, topicmap tools let you manage, create, and merge topicmaps. But they don't let you do anything specifically useful outside of the topicmap realm (like create a simple application for managing your CD's, like Access lets you do).

The level of abstraction of topicmaps is higher (which provides great Power and Flexibility) than that of databases. But that means that, to get from a topicmap to a useful application, you need more stuff in between."