The Contract List is Dead, Long live the Contract Element!

["Toby Considine" <Toby.Considine@gmail.com>]

Much of the conversation since February has been around the confusing and inconsistent use of Contract and ContractList. This is compounded by the “is” and the “of” which are “formatted as a contract list”

 

As I can best summarize the conclusions:

 

A ContractElement is an URI.

A contract is a string consisting of 0-to-many space delimited ContractElements.

If a Contract consists of 0 (zero) ContractElements, then by convention it is represented with the reserved string “nil”

 

There is some language that suggests that the first contract element in a contract has some sort of special or primary value, but it is not yet clear to me precisely what this means.

 

I believe that this language, and this description, if applied across all the areas of the specification document that use the term “Contract” will remove the last inconsistencies in the specification.

 

The Schema WD41, recently uploaded, reflects this change.

 

tc

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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

– George Bernard Shaw.

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Toby Considine TC9, Inc. Toby.Considine@gmail.com Phone: (919)619-2104 http://www.tc9.com

Chair, OASIS OBIX Technical Committee Chair, OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee Editor, OASIS Energy Market Information Exchange (EMIX) Editor, OASIS Energy Interoperation blog: http://www.NewDaedalus.com