Re: [tag] Comment on Section 4.7 "The Case of Multiple Specifications"

[Kevin Looney <Kevin.T.Looney@Sun.COM>]

Hi Jacques, everyone,

Jacques R. Durand wrote:
> *Issue*: Section 4.7 seems to focus on the case of "multiple 
> specifications" but really its content is about using higher-level 
> statements (conformance) in TAs. It is relevant even when dealing with 
> a single specification that defines different conformance profiles or 
> high-level properties that cover several normative statements.

I understand that you 'can generalize' this section to cover other 
situations (eg. statements regarding conformance profiles or other high 
level properties), but is it really useful to do this?  Multiple 
specifications were originally drawn out because it is quite common for 
specifications to reference each other, and it is important when 
encoding TAs to describe the context of the assertion in this closure of 
specifications.  I think there is reasonable value in illustrating this 
situation in the guideline.
>  
> *Proposal*:
>  
> The title of this section 4.7 "The Case of Multiple Specifications" 
> may not be well-chosen: the section is really about TAs making higher 
> level statements (conformance statements) in their Predicate or 
> Prerequisite.
> These conformance statements could refer to other specifications 
> ("multiple specs") but not necessarily: it could be several conf 
> profiles from the same big specification.
>  
> - Title could refocus on the Test Assertion itself by saying: 
> "Higher-Level test Assertions",
> because such TAs address or refer to entire conformance statements 
> (either to an external spec, or just a conformance profile to the 
> current spec), not just a simple normative statement.
While I agree that this is a reasonable generalization, I would hate to 
lose readers who need to solve multi-spec encoding problems in this 
generalization.  I think there is value is specifically focusing on 
encoding TAs over multiple specs.

Would it be reasonable to describe somewhere else that "there are other 
types of higher-level conformance statements that can be described in a 
manner similar to how multiple specifications are handled"?
>  
> - The section could mention the possibility to refer to other test 
> assertions inside the Predicate (not just in the Prerequisite):
> e.g. a "high-level" TA can have a Predicate that says: (TA1 AND TA2 
> AND (TA3 OR TA4)) . Such a TA can address a conformance
> profile, when such a profile can be defined by test assertions. The 
> other possibility - the only one we describe currently - is to make an 
> abstract conformance statement in the Predicate (but this only works 
> if such a conformance statement is already well-defined... and 
> sometimes precisely it is defined by a high-level expression over the 
> outcome of several TAs).
Again, I don't object to these type of generalizations, but possibly in 
a different section.
>  
> - The section can make the link with the "Test Assertions for 
> Properties" section 4.3, showing how a complex property (often 
> indistinguishable from a conformance profile) can be defined by a 
> [higher-level] TA, in complex cases where several TAs are needed.
> See my email 8/4: we could illustrate in 4.7 the case where 
> "medium-size" is defined by a separate TA that refers two low-level 
> TAs - one on widget weight, one on widget size.
>  
> Regards,
> Jacques

Regards,
Kevin L