RE: [tag] Requirement: component like a tag but for 'namespace'

[stephen.green@systml.co.uk]

Really the namespace is a property not of the target but
of the TA (or a set of TAs). It could be represented as
a prefix to the TA_Id of each TA of a set of TAs - a
namespace would then be declared somewhere and associated
with the prefix.

Example:

Acme specify widgets for large and small widgets separately
but the TA_Id for a large widget TA might have be the
same as one of the small widget TA_Ids: the Acme company
has one research lab in San Jose in charge of writing the
large widget spec and a lab in Bristol, UK in charge of
the small widget spec and they work independently. The
UK lab gets assigned a urn for its namespaces which is
'urn:acme-names:bristol' and the US one has
'urn:acme-names:sj-usa'. Each lab writes its own TAs and
they have a standard that they should use their urns
to create namespaces to assign to all TAs they write. Then
the combination of both TA_Id and namespace is used to
keep the ids unique and to act as a kind of stamp to show
which lab created and maintains the respective TAs. Each
TA contains both a TA_Id and (separately for clarity and
to help with referencing, etc) a namespace. When the TA
is referenced for a prerequisite then both the TA_Id and
the namespace are contained in the reference.



-- 
Stephen D. Green

Partner
SystML, http://www.systml.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 117 9541606

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+22:37 .. and voice



Quoting "Durand, Jacques R." <JDurand@us.fujitsu.com>:

> Tags will have names - we could have a set of predefined tag names, and
> one of them could be what you are looking for. Would that work?
> Also if named "namespace" would that be only for use with XML material?
>  We need to make the case this naming problem is a general enough issue
> that deserves a mention in the guidelines, independently from XML.
>
> Jacques
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stephen.green@systml.co.uk [mailto:stephen.green@systml.co.uk]
> Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 4:54 AM
> To: tag@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [tag] Requirement: component like a tag but for 'namespace'
>
> Apologies it is such a late stage (and maybe too late for guidelines so
> maybe something for adjunct document):
> I feel there is need for another component (optional but possibly
> important) in a TA: something like a namespace to create a TA package. I
> suggest it is an upper level of grouping.
> Rationale: when TAs are otherwise atomic and possibly self-contained,
> there needs to be a way to associate TAs with a group, like tagging but
> a bit more authoritative. It is a special kind of tag which is the same
> in function as a namespace in XML/code and a package in modeling/code
> but as with XML namespaces it can confer authority in that the authors
> can reserve use of the namespace to their own work, say. Whether it
> would include a version id is a special discussion as there may be
> special problems with this like those in XML where there may be a need
> to add TAs and/or introduce a new version without having to use a new
> namespace. Maybe it is a type of tag particularly relevant to a header.
>
> If it isn't to be added as a TA component, maybe it could be added as
> metadata to the TA(s) - not to be confused with test metadata of course.
>
> Again, apologies for the lateness.
>