End of cross-reference nightmare. Humans can focus on semantics of linking, while machines will do the addressing job. Topic Maps are based on a separation between linking and locating. A significant subset of the architecture can be described using XML extended links. Independent links Link constructs are independent of each of their anchors.
Topics are specialized link elements.
They express a certain kind of relationship, and link element instances can be grouped by type. Other filtering attributes will be added in a future version of the architecture, such as language, validity, etc. Topics can have zero or several titles. Topics can be used for the representation of indexes, glossaries, and cross-references. They play the same role as index term.