RE: [emergency-msg] Groups - EM-Msg SC Meeting added

["Ham, Gary A" <hamg@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Rex,

I know how to use a schema for validation.  I can even see how it could
be auto-loaded into a model as a DOM.  If you want the DOM to be
normative, what you have to do is provide a simple, easy to navigate for
programmers, free-to-use, method for validating that guarantees that it
will also validate against the schema.  In such a case I would probably
agree 100% with you.  I am just not sure where you are going.  I general
think of DOMs in terms of Java or Data modeling. (Limitation of my
background, I suspect.) For Java, a DOM is easy to load, but programmers
would have to separately code many of content restrictions that are more
easily enforceable by simply applying schema validation. As a data
model, I can generate a lot of good "stuff" (including different forms
of schema, relational, XML, etc.). To me, the model, as we have been
using it, is still only a very useful graphical technique for defining a
data structure.  Models can, with strict discipline imposed, become the
basis for very real schemas, but the discipline is sometimes harder to
see in the model than it is in the schema that the model is designed to
represent.  This is why UML had to develop Object Constraint Language
(OCL).  The pictures alone were simply not enough.      

Question: Is your notion of DOM more, less, or at the same level of
restrictiveness as an XML schema?  I would guess that it offers more
control, rather than less, but I am not sure from your discussion.  

Our current way of thinking has been somewhat less restrictive.  With
added modeling discipline we could accomplish equivalence.  The more
restrictive approach would pave the way to direct model-driven
development, which is not a bad thing, but appears to me to be two steps
in front of what we need to accomplish to get our specification
finished. I am also afraid that it would take just about 4 times as
long.  

R/s

Gary A. Ham 
Senior Research Scientist
Battelle Memorial Institute
540-288-5611 (office)
703-869-6241 (cell)
"You would be surprised what you can accomplish when you do not care who
gets the credit." - Harry S. Truman

-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 10:07 AM
To: Ham, Gary A
Cc: emergency-msg@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [emergency-msg] Groups - EM-Msg SC Meeting added

We should probably discuss this, if we can find some time to spare for
it. I lean toward making the DOMs purely normative so tools can grab n
go. I'm pushing for standard object libraries for standards included in
the registry I'm building so developers can have app-ready libraries.

For me, and this is obviously a personal opinion, I think we can make
adoption darn near unavoidable if we make it easy through "standard" 
libraries and DOMs for developers to have Web Application using Web
Services all but build themselves.

  I put quotes around "standard" libraries, because I don't expect the
TC to develop any such thing, but the Member Section could and should.
However, these libraries can't actually be Standard with a cap S. They
can be offered as ibraries of specification-compliant object libraries
like JSP tag libraries.

It also encourages real interoperability by making it easier.

The recent rapid development of AJAX really put us on the spot in the
Web Services arena in general and in particular in the OASIS Web
Services for Remote Portlets TC, where IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA et al
devote actual paid time to develop and test the standards. It has bitten
us in the rear end while we spent cycles and cycles fussing over the
niceties of whether or not to invent transient properties and where and
how to use em. AJAX just left us in the dust to adapt as best we can.

It's the handwriting on the wall: If we don't keep ahead, we'll never
catch up with the developers out there who will go ahead and build
anything they think, or their marketing bosses tell them, they need.

And they will do it in ways that we can just about guarantee won't
encourage the kind of interoperability we are searching for as opposed
to say the kind of interoperability one can get by rolling the dice for
whether or not the PHP tags one uses will be handled the way one wants
them to be handled on a given web server.

I hope I don't break my neck getting down off this soap box.

Cheers,
Rex

At 8:28 AM -0500 11/20/06, Ham, Gary A wrote:
>  Actually, I prefer to think of them as "graphic message structure 
>diagrams" as opposed to DOMs.  I.e., the schema is paramount.  The
"DOM"
>is just an illustration for clarity. None-the-less a very useful 
>illustration for clarity.
>
>
>Gary A. Ham
>Senior Research Scientist
>Battelle Memorial Institute
>540-288-5611 (office)
>703-869-6241 (cell)
>"You would be surprised what you can accomplish when you do not care 
>who gets the credit." - Harry S. Truman
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tim Grapes [mailto:tgrapes@evotecinc.com]
>Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 3:57 PM
>To: rexb@starbourne.com
>Cc: emergency-msg@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject: RE: [emergency-msg] Groups - EM-Msg SC Meeting added
>
>Maybe I missed something...  I didn't think DOM development for each 
>message was off the table; just that it would be challenging to get 
>them done before the FtoF.  I think it's critical that the DOMs be
developed.
>
>Thanks,
>Tim
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: rexb@starbourne.com [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com]
>Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 12:51 PM
>To: emergency-msg@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject: [emergency-msg] Groups - EM-Msg SC Meeting added
>
>I highlighted being REALISTIC about where we will be with the document 
>going into the F2F because I DON'T think, given recent activities, that

>we will have ANY DOMs and perhaps no schemas. Without DOMs, relying 
>solely on schemas, I think we can expect a wide variance in 
>applications, which, given the number of message types, is asking for 
>problems. If everyone builds their own, or lets them be determined as 
>de facto outcomes of unstructured applications built solely on schemas 
>and the data dictionary, I think we court having a mess. I intensely 
>dislike DOM-based development, but they do enforce common structures, 
>and that means ongoing INTEROPERABILITY in fact, versus theory.
>
>  -- Rex Brooks*
>
>
>EM-Msg SC Meeting has been added by Rex Brooks*
>
>Date:  Monday, 20 November 2006
>Time:  04:00pm - 05:00pm ET
>
>Event Description:
>Dial-in Number:  1-641-696-6699  (Iowa) 
>Access Code	 345450
>
>Agenda:
>1. Approve Minutes of previous meeting.
>2. Review latest draft of EDXL_RM.
>3. Determine goals for F2F wrt EDXL_RM, including REALISTIC asessment 
>of where we will be going in.
>4. Mke a list of issues to be addressed as Karen noted.
>5. Focus activities that leverage group participation.
>
>Minutes:
>
>
>View event details:
>http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/emergency-msg/event.php?ev
>e
>nt_i
>d=12988
>
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--
Rex Brooks
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison
Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-849-2309