UBL 0p70 comment "c.1" regarding rendering of UBL instances

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Hi David!

My name is Ken and I'm heading up the Forms Presentation Subcommittee 
(FPSC) recently created as a subcommittee of UBL:

   http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl/200303/msg00000.html
   http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/fpsc/

The LCSC produces sample UBL instances according to different 
documentation-oriented use scenarios and we who have been involved in FPSC 
have, to date, merely produced suitable renderings for the use scenarios.

We're taking ownership of your question to UBL that has been summarized to 
me as:

   "There is no standard way of rendering a UBL document
   into human readable form."

My own opinion is to find a single "standard" way of rendering is contrary 
to the usual late-binding philosophy of users of stylesheets choosing their 
own preference of how they wish to regard the information found in an 
instance.  I would not support tying UBL instances to stylesheets for fear 
of losing flexibility provided by late-binding approaches.  I'll be 
interested to hear the opinions of other members of our subcommittee.

However, your comment brought up that there are no diagnostic renderings 
with which one would expose the content of a UBL instance outside the 
context of any use scenario.  Such a rendering would be a PDF output of the 
content, merely as content.  I'm looking into making this a generic 
stylesheet and not a particular requirement of FPSC.

By cc'ing our subcommittee list, I'm bringing these points of view to the 
attention of our fledgling subcommittee ... would you be interested in 
joining FPSC in order to participate in this and other related questions 
and activities regarding the rendering of UBL instances?  To join FPSC one 
must first join UBL as we take our subcommittee members from the UBL list 
of members.  CommerceOne is a member, so it shouldn't be a lot of effort to 
get you involved.

At the least, please let me know if you would like to elaborate on your 
question so our committee can be assured we are addressing all of your 
concerns.  In the progress of our work we will compose the formal 
disposition of your comment and feed that back to LCSC for inclusion in 
their report.

Thanks David!

................... Ken

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G. Ken Holman                mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
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