  The topology of symplectic 4-manifolds is related to that of singular plane
curves via the concept of branched covers. Thus, various classification
problems concerning symplectic 4-manifolds can be reformulated as questions
about singular plane curves. Moreover, using braid monodromy, these can in turn
be reformulated in the language of braid group factorizations. While the
results mentioned in this paper are not new, we hope that they will stimulate
interest in these questions, which remain essentially wide open.
