How to proceed with TMQL?

In general I think we are making useful progress on TMQL, but I would
like to see us speeding up a little now. I really think the time has
come to choose one of the four proposals (or some hybrid) as a basis
for further work and do a first committee draft.

The question is: How should we go about making our choice? The WG as
a whole has to take that decision, but we need help from the most
active contributors, in particular those that have put forward
proposals.

I would like to suggest a session (at the start of the meeting?) in
which each person who has put forward a language proposal gets to
state his very clear opinion. In other words, Robert, Dmitry, Rani
and Lars Marius should tell us which alternative (AsTMa? / TMPath /
toma / tolog / some hybrid) he thinks we should chose as the basis
for TMQL and why. They should point out very clearly the strengths
of their chosen alternative and the weaknesses of the others.

This probably means they will have to sing the praises of their own
proposals, which I know will be difficult because they are all so
modest :-)  But it has to be done, and I think it is perhaps the
most useful way to proceed. I know it would help me immeasurably.

I suggest that 30 mins per person should be enough for this exercise.

What do the rest of you think?

Steve

--
Steve Pepper <[email protected]>
Chief Strategy Officer, Ontopia
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3
Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps 1.0)