Comments on CVA spec WD0.2 21 Nov

["Paul Spencer" <paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk>]

Sorry it has taken me a while to catch up, but I have now read this draft.

As a general point, why XPath 1.0, not 2.0?

I seem to remember this one being discussed, but I have forgotten the
reason. Since the CVA spec applies solely to genericode validation, why is
the word "genericode" not included in the title?

In the introduction, there is discussion of three levels of validation:
structure, value, co-constraints. But genericode only covers a fraction of
value constraints. For example, it does not cover a constraint that a value
must be between 100 and 299. This seems to be ignored in the discussion.

I followed the link to Crane Softwrights resources at the bottom of page 7,
but did not find anything relevant initially. The link to the correct page
on the site needs to mention genericode and CVA.

I think the use of mixed model has been discussed. I hate it in this type of
document. I would only allow mixed model in external namespaces (such as
XHTML). It is easier to read and easier to process without it.

CVA uses a relational model with separate ValueList and Contexts. I can see
that this saves text in rare cases where a masqueraded list has multiple
references, but otherwise it just complicates things. Is it necessary? I
would prefer to see the two combined into something like:
	<Association item="@item-a" values="enumeration2.gs/>

I understand the use of the context and xpath attributes, but do we need
both? Would it be less confusing if we dropped the context attribute?

I also wonder if it will be confusing to some to have a Context element and
a context attribute.

I kept looking at the example on page 10 looking for an example of the use
of the xpath attribute. There isn't one.

The penultimate para of page 11 ends by mentioning two mutually-exclusive
attributes. It would be useful to name them here.

A personal thing - I dislike using angle brackets round element names.
"<Context>" is not an element - it is a start tag. Similarly "item=" is
neither an attribute, nor an attribute name. As I say, this is personal
preference. I don't think  OASIS has a guideline on this.

Does the xpath attribute always specify a single information item? This is
the implication of the last para of page 11.

Last para of page 12. Should this be non-normative? Perhaps a normative
statement is needed as well to describe how multiple references to the same
information item are handled.

The note on page 13. I was not sure what this added.

p15. Mixed content again. This could easily be removed.

Appendix A. Is this needed?

That's it. Some minor comments, some rather more major. I look forward to
some responses.

Regards

Paul Spencer
Director
Boynings Consulting Ltd
http://boynings.co.uk