Re: ... coments on Section 3.7.2 "COmposition of Assertions" (V0.995)

[david_marston@us.ibm.com]

JD>-
in some of these cases, eligibility refers to another TA(s) - meaning to
the outcome of the predicate of these TAs. It is more informative to "reuse"
another TA in the prerequiiste Instead of just replicating the predicate
expression: this indicates to test suite writers a way to avoid redundant
testing. 
It also indicates what is the
impact of failing a TA on the outcome of other TAs (so that users can make
the difference between a "naturally unqualified" target and a
target that is not qualified because it failed a previous TA where it should
have passed it.

I agree with that principle.
I was just trying to point out a couple hazards that must be avoided:
1. Circularity in the chain
of dependencies
2. Citing some other spec
at the general notion of "conformance" as opposed to having the
prerequisite tied to an actual TA from that other spec (which may be addressed
by having a "summary TA" in the other spec)
I see emails that question
what the prerequisite is trying to do in the context of citing another
spec. Maybe the predicate is adequate in itself. For example, if all FooML
documents must be well-formed XML documents, can't the FooML TAs just have
a TA without a prerequisite...
Target: FooML document
Predicate: the document is
a well-formed XML document, per XML 1.0
Is that an adequate example
of one spec citing another?
..................David Marston
IBM Research