[humanmarkup] PBS Wider Concerns

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Hi Everyone,

Beside all THAT, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln? <facetious />

I have to say that I am concerned that Sylvia expressed some serious 
misgivings about this version of the Primary Base Schema that may be 
shared by others.

I sent a long message about my own concerns in regard to some fairly 
significant changes I thought would be wise in creating a more 
hierarchically structured schema, but even that fails to answer the 
questions Sylvia had. In a nutshell, she was not happy with what an 
xml schema is and how it works, and I was unable to adequately answer 
her questions.

As I said in my longer post, it was not easy to grasp the overall 
picture of the schema until it was laid out in this version of the 
schema where you can see the structure more clearly in the columns of 
elements, complexTypes, simpleTypes and attributeGroups, but even 
then it is not clear how it fits together to form the foundation of 
the language.

I don't know how to convey that. I have tried, and I'm afraid I will 
have to refer you to the W3C XML Schema specification, as poorly 
explained as it is.

It might have been more clear if we had simply not attempted to give 
more fully developed  complexTypes because they raise more questions 
than they answer.

If you think of the entire schema as a collection of placeholders for 
more fully developed elaborations and enumerations of the Secondary 
Base Schema it would be more accurate than focusing on the specifics 
here, and that was also the reasoning behind my suggestion for the 
hierarchy of characteristics, communication and identity, but in 
terms of this version, we have to vote now.

The fact of the matter is that once we announce it or announce that 
we are going back to working on it further, we can conduct the 
necessary discussions and make what changes we decide are necessary. 
So, I think we should move on.

I believe that what we have is useable, and adaptable and we are 
already committed to developing a mechanism to make changes as deemed 
necessary so we are not casting concrete or bronze. And, in the final 
analysis, this process will have served its purpose in focusing our 
attention on what it is we are actually doing here.

Timing, however, is fairly critical for me personally, because one 
way or another, I have come to the end of my ability to sustain this 
level of effort. So, we have to deal with that as well as with the 
changes OASIS has made and which we will need to address in the near 
future.

Ciao,
Rex
-- 
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com