Response to Daniel's review comments (Re: Committee Draft of ISO Schematron available)

Rick Jelliffe <[email protected]> Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:23:13 +1000
Newsgroups gmane.text.xml.schematron
Message-ID <[email protected]>
This is a partial response to Daniel's review comments on the ISO 
Schematron draft.

First, thanks to Daniel for his painstaking review.

I will be posting a corrections lists in the next couple of days.  
Almost all Daniel's comments
have been accepted. The ones that I have not accepted are below, with 
comments.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

6.4 Query Language Binding


>> NOTE 8: The following other query language names are reserved without 
>> further definition. Implementions which use different
>  
>
query language bindings are encouraged to use one of these names if
appropriate : stx, xslt xslt1.1, exslt, xslt2, xpath, xpath2, xquery.

One thing I note here is how should multiple languages be specified? For
example, exslt does not necessarily implies xslt support (in .NET, EXSLT.NET
is independent of XSLT, for example), and xpath2 may not mean exslt is not
supported... Maybe the query language should be a list of supported
features, such as "xslt exslt xpath xquery". 

Rick say: it is the writer of the schema's job to state which language 
they are using,
and the writer of the implementation's job to figure out which query 
languages are
subsets of the ones they implement. 

5.2.8 param element

>> "The required value attribute is a fragment of a query."
>  
>
Don't understand this. A fragment? Why?

Rick says: it is a fragment because we don't want to restrict it in 
anyway, as might be
implied by "term" or "expression" or "closure" etc.

5.2.9 pattern element

>> "A structure, simple or complex." 
>  
>
Not necessary. May be removed.

Rick says: I think it is nice.


5.2.7 ns element
I still have problems understanding why doesn't schematron use the usual
xmlns: binding approach. I think we discussed this before, but still don't
get it  :( 

Rick says: This is a religious area: the W3C TAG seems to take the view that
you shouldn't even use prefixes in attributes at all, which is utterly bogus.
I really dislike XML Schema's approach in this regarded ( elementDefaultForm
etc)

3.14 rule

>> "a rule is said to fire when an information item matches its query". 
>  
>
Maybe add "matches its rule-context expression query", so that we know we're
talking about the following definition.

Rick says: in the definitions section, information is not necessarily 
presented in
the order it is needed for exposition: in this case, the info comes 
immediately after
it.

Annex A: RelaxNG Schema

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the schema, but most definitions use "inclusions"
instead of direct "include" element as specified in the spec. text. Although
it looks like a shortcut only... 

Rick says: in RELAX NG compact syntax, we are defining a grammar rule called
"inclusions" which will be satisified by "element include".  (There was a 
typo with a missing "s" b.t.w.)

Many definitions include a "linkable" attribute which isn't introduced in
the spec. 

Rick says: in RELAX NG compact syntax, we define a grammar rule called
"linkable" which will be satisifed by the appropriate links.

5.3.2 diagnostic element

>> NOTE 5: Diagnostics in multiple languages may be supported by using a 
>> different diagnostic element for each language, with the appropriate 
>> xml:lang language attribute, and referencing all the unique 
>> identifiers of
>  
>
the diagnostics elements in the diagnostics attribute of the assertion.
So, each localized version of the diagnostic element must have a different
ID, right? I guess it would be better to allow them to all have the same ID
(provided they have different xml:lang attribute), so only one ID must be
referenced.

Rick says: that definitely has attractive points, but I would prefer to
stick to something that can be validated using IDREFS. 

>> "A correct schema has one definition only in scope for any variable 
>> name
>  
>
in any context."
Did I say I don't like this restriction much? ;)

Rick says: actually, neither do I, but because we do not have implementation
experience, I think it is better to err on the side of caution.  (If I 
can convince
myself in time, I will try to get this changed, but I cannot guarantee it.)

5.3.5 flag attribute

Can't understand what this attribute is about  :( 

Rick says: see posting yesterday



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email sponsored by Black Hat Briefings & Training.
Attend Black Hat Briefings & Training, Las Vegas July 24-29 - 
digital self defense, top technical experts, no vendor pitches, 
unmatched networking opportunities. Visit www.blackhat.com