Comments on Public Review Draft 01 - C++

[William Cox <wtcox@comcast.net>]

Comment numbers in square brackets. References are to the PDF.

[0] The specification is excellent overall. I found few errors, and the 
specifcation raised relatively few questions.

[1] Editorial Line 52

Reference should be made to the typographical conventions for 
conformance assertions in this section. The Assembly document's handling 
of conformance statements and highlighting is excellent; I recommend 
that this (and all other SCA specs) follow that example.

A reference to Section 11 belongs in the typographic conventions section.

[2] Technical Section 2.1.1ff

Some of this reads like reinvention of aspects of CORBA with remote 
services. A compare and contrast (perhaps in a separate architectural 
white paper) with other remoting techniques would make this choice 
easier to review. Is this indeed a reinvention? Or is it a simple 
acknowledgement that remotable and local services share some similarity 
in the SCA model? More architectural discussion would make that 
evaluation easier.

The specification is quite clear and seems effective, though I've not 
tried to write to it.

[3] Editorial lines 1152-1154

Part of the text is a heading; repair.

[4] Technical Lines 1641-1644

It's quite clear (given the context, though not stated) why Friend 
classes MUST NOT be used; it's less clear why Macros should not be.  If 
this is an implementation-based architectural decision, perhaps it 
should be mentioned

[5] Technical General

It's hard to tell where to start reading the SCA specifications; I've 
concentrated on Assembly and Java/C++ as that's what I intend to use.  
Many of the architectural choices, and the specification details, would 
be more clear if mentioned in a separate white paper or linkable 
publication . The architectural choices made in the design of SCA are 
interesting in of themselves, but would inform the reader, implementer, 
and user as they work with the specifciations.

[6] Editorial Lines 1758-1766

A reference to the conformance items and Appendix F would make this 
section read better.

[7] Editorial General

"Error! Reference source not found" at lines 991 and 1413. Please repair.