OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

Mail Index message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: Re: [ubl-fssc] Formal proposal for subcommittee (fwd)


(though Jon is not a member of the subcommittee, I have cc'ed him for this 
issue of clarifying the charter that he plans to present to UBL at the end 
of this week)

At 2003-03-10 11:02 +0800, Chin Chee-Kai wrote:
>Yeah, if embracing the dark side to be a lurker is ok,
>please put me on the subcomm if you may.

:{)} Lurkers who speak up too much may get tasked with work!

>Just dabbling a bit on the draft charter, like to give a
>bit of late opinions on nit-picking the 3 paras:
>
>    1. To liaise with standardization organizations responsible for
>       paper-based business commerce forms regarding evolving
>       requirements for the display of information.
>
>Suggest adding "international" before "standardization",

I'd like to keep the door open to any standardization organization, not 
just international ... who knows who might get interested in this, 
especially since we are trying to make it available world-wide?  There may 
be a national body organization somewhere who recognizes and embraces our 
work and offers some input.

>and
>de-focus "display" in favor of "presentation".

I can accept this change ... "display" may imply "electronic" to some readers.

>Suggest
>renumbering it to number 2 (please see 2 below).

I'd like to keep the politics as number one because the rest of the world 
works with paper and we're trying to bridge their world with UBL.  In fact, 
our little subcommittee might end up being ambassadors of UBL as a whole in 
that interested parties who have had decades of immersion in the paper 
world might look to us first when considering UBL.

>    2. To rapidly develop and document formal technology-agnostic
>       Formatting Specifications as interpretations of
>       internationally standardized or otherwise available
>       paper-based forms for the rendering of UBL documents
>       suitable for the human reader.
>
>What does "technology-agnostic Formatting Specifications"
>mean?

I have seen this used before and I understood when I first saw this term as 
meaning "unbiased to any technology" ... a verbatim definition of 
"agnostic" when used as an adjective is "uncertain of all claims to 
knowledge" [WordNet], such that "technology-agnostic formatting 
specifications" would be "formatting specifications written without any 
knowledge of technological implementations thereof".

>Suggest to use a simpler description so won't create
>unnecessary confusion.

I think the term is quite suitable and conveniently succinct.

>Suggest also replacing "rendering"
>(output-only), to "presentation".

I can accept this suggestion.

>"UBL documents suitable
>for the human reader" seems to suggest that there are UBL
>documents that are not suitable for the human reader.
>Suggest doing away with raising this question.

I do not support this suggestion.  The UBL focus to date is 
computer-to-computer and though it is redundant to talk of presentation in 
that for what other reason might you want to present the information, I 
think this phrase emphasizes the reason we exist and distinguishes our 
efforts from the efforts of the other UBL committees.

>Suggest
>shifting this to number 1 as it appears to be the bulk of
>work and primary purpose (correct me if I'm mistaken please).

It isn't a "mistake" ... it is just a different preference for emphasis.  I 
would like to emphasize the politics of liaison with the communities with 
decades of paper-based forms experience, so as to win their support and 
(hopefully!) contribution to our efforts.

>Suggest shifting bracketed explanations to "Scope of Work"
>for elaborations.

I disagree ... by prefixing this with "e.g." we are leaving our options 
open by merely giving examples to give a reader of the essence of our 
efforts without having to go to the list of tasks.

>   Does the "test" mentioned here imply a
>resulting documentation of test results, or test tools or
>developed prototypes, or something else?

Something else: to test if our output products (the specifications) are 
meaningful and useful to an implementer of presentation technology.  If we 
didn't have candidate users of our output products, how would we know that 
we met a perceived need with a successful delivery?

>Ie, should people,
>after reading this para, expect some kind of test result,
>tools, prototypes to be available?

Not in any way.

>If so, we could probably
>state them as a targeted objective.  If not (or the sense
>isn't that strong as to state it as an necessary outcome),
>we could perhaps do away with stating "in order to test"
>as that can be burried under SC activities.

Not sure what you mean here by "buried", but hopefully I have conveyed my 
personal perspective that what is being tested is the efficacy of our 
committee's work products.

>Also, I dunno if this might be important, but should there be
>some clarification under "Technical Liaison" perhaps on how
>FPSC interacts with LSC as well as with the external organisations
>with whom LSC happens to also interact?

I don't think so ... again to be flexible we can leave this quite loose.

But these are only my personal perspectives on your suggestions, Chin; I 
will await others to post their suggestions before making any changes to 
the draft.

*Please* post your suggestions quickly, as Jon will be wanting a final 
draft soon!

Thanks!

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

--
Upcoming hands-on in-depth XSLT/XPath and/or XSL-FO
                              North America:      June 16-20, 2003

G. Ken Holman                mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
Crane Softwrights Ltd.         http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0   +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995)
ISBN 0-13-065196-6                      Definitive XSLT and XPath
ISBN 0-13-140374-5                              Definitive XSL-FO
ISBN 1-894049-08-X  Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-10-1              Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO
Male Breast Cancer Awareness http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/bc





[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Powered by ezmlm-idx