RE: [ubl-ndrsc] New position papers on dates/times and containers hip

["Gregory, Arofan" <arofan.gregory@commerceone.com>]

Eve:

I will definitely use the new template - I didn't have a copy on my machine,
and couldn't get on the web when I wrote the paper, so I did what I could.

I would be very interested in hearing others' (and especially Gunther's)
comments on how we could adapt the spreadsheet methodology. Tim made it
clear that he would want full control of even the syntax-bound constructsin
the library, so I think your comment about making lists explicit is well
taken.

They way we did this in the xCBL spreadsheet methodology was: (a) for
unnamed constructs like choices - to have lines that were basically empty,
but that indicated the start and end of the group; (b) For named constructs,
we treated them like everything else, and just didn't provide information
where it wasn't relevant. This approach will work, but there may well be a
cleaner mechanism we could adopt.

As for distinctions between semantic and non-semantic constructs, maybe it
will be easier all around if we avoid this argument and simply say "they're
all semantic", as you suggest is possible. We need to provide containers,
semantic or otherwise, and if we're giving control of providing them to
those doing the modelling, then whether we choose to say that they are
semantic or not is sort of academic.

Cheers,

Arofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Eve L. Maler [mailto:eve.maler@sun.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 5:23 PM
To: Eve L. Maler
Cc: ubl-ndrsc@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [ubl-ndrsc] New position papers on dates/times and
containership


Here are some comments on the containership paper.

First of all, great job!  I think this lays out the requirements in an 
objective and convincing fashion.  I believe Lisa will be bringing this 
topic to the attention of the LC SC shortly, and I have pointed her to 
this paper to get her started.  I think that we ideally need to engage 
both groups together on this topic.  (Lisa, do you think that this is 
something you and I can arrange together?)

Regarding lists, I think it may be desirable for the model to add 
list-grouping elements explicitly in at least some cases.  First, it's 
debatable whether this isn't a "semantic" construct, since it's 
manifestly possible to define the semantics of each list. (It's a thin 
line... :-)  And certainly, in many cases where properties are 
explicitly "common to all members of the list", it may very well be that 
the properties are really properties "of the list"; these are obvious 
cases of "semantic" list groupings.

The grouping section is excellent.  It would be great if it could 
conclude with a suggestion (or several) on how the modeling approach 
could change to ensure proper coverage of these grouping opportunities. 
  (I fear it isn't trivial.)

Regarding extension and reuse, I would make the same comment as about 
the semantics of lists.  Who says these packages are not semantic?! :-) 
  The paper certainly makes it look easy to come up with properly 
constructed names that follow our naming rules.  If the question is 
really "Are such groupings specific to the XML syntax binding or might 
they have utility in other bindings?", I don't know the answer.  But I 
do know that groupings have been treated as "legitimate" semantic 
constructs in every SGML and XML model I've ever done.

A minor nit: The next version of the paper should ideally use the new 
template and should have numbered lines for ease of citation.

	Eve

-- 
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center   eve.maler @ sun.com


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