RE: [xml-dev] Defining an XML vocabulary: specify syntax, semanti cs, an

["Len" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

It's a reality statement, Noah.  You are taking the position that the
abstraction which *enables* processor independence is more important than
the specification of the processor that can process the abstract data.

That's wrong for building practical systems.  Independence is right, but you
are dismissing the question out of hand.  Data designers shouldn't dismiss
questions better asked of process designers.

OOP?  Sometimes we handle data as data rows, too.  Why would my customer
want rows that they can't display, edit, delete, add, spell check, search,
truncate, attach, detach.... and so on.

Data independence enables multiple semantics.  Multiple semantics do not
disable data abstraction.  They do have the effect of tensors over the
values and the stability of the information.  They hold them within
predictions.

Objects are a kind of implementation or producer.  I may not care that the
format they consume is abstract, I do care what roles they perform when
doing that.

Interface specs act as a limiter/selector over the set of valid datasets.
Roles organize interfaces.  Roles define behavioral graphs.  That is one
model for organizing permissions for operations over data.  If not roles,
event-compatible graphs can.  (See X3D for a model).  You can combine those.

D'oh.

So what I am suggesting is Roger rephrase his question not in terms of the
XML abstraction, but the handlers as networked services.

Which means, probably, the answer is SOAP or whatever REST definition works,
but the answer is not found exclusively in the XML without adding another
specification.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com [mailto:noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:00 PM
To: Len Bullard
Cc: Costello, Roger L.; Fraser Goffin; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] Defining an XML vocabulary: specify syntax, semanti
cs, and BEHAVIOR?

Len Bullard wrote:

> The question might be better phrased by specifying the actor that is
> instructed.  No format without a format handler.

Well, that seems to be the opposite of the position I was taking.  When I 
set my resume down in an XML document, I don't have some particular actor 
in mind.  Sometimes the "actor" will be a "hire me" application. Sometimes 
the same resume can go into a repository of resumes of those who work for 
my current employer.  Sometime it might be used as input to a search 
application.  Similarly, an XML document giving the inventory of some 
warehouse can be input to a reporting application, an order planning 
application, etc.  In many, though certainly not in all cases, the power 
of XML is that there can indeed be formats without format handlers.  "No 
format without a format handler" is pretty close to the object-oriented 
approach; there are things for which OO is very good, but XML can be good 
for other things too.

Noah

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
--------------------------------------








Len Bullard <len.bullard@uai.com>
04/10/2008 12:06 PM
 
        To:     noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com, Fraser Goffin 
<goffinf@googlemail.com>
        cc:     "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>, 
xml-dev@lists.xml.org
        Subject:        RE: [xml-dev] Defining an XML vocabulary: specify 
syntax, semanti cs, and BEHAVIOR?


Not much time for this:

The question might be better phrased by specifying the actor that is
instructed.  No format without a format handler.

XML doesn't care what you intend to do with information.

So is the question: what is the optimum way to specify processor behavior
for some given XML and some given processor?

len


From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com [mailto:noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com] 
 
I think the question ultimately proves to be circular.  There are many 
uses of XML:  for some of those uses, the whole point is to encode 
behavior, and for some uses it's just to encode information.  The most 
obvious example of the former would be an XML serialization of some 
imperative set of instructions:  go to the store, buy some yogurt, go 
home, eat it.  For such uses, of course it makes sense to define 
"behavioral information".   In other cases, XML is used to encode just 
information or data.  For example:  "Noah's phone number is 555-1234".  I 
claim there need not in general be any preferred behavior associated with 
receiving or encountering an XML document encoding this information. 
Should you dial my phone number every time you open the XML file?  Should 
you add it to your address book again?  If the answer is yes, then your 
goal was not to encode my phone number, it was to encode an instruction 
for doing something with my phone number.  So, it depends what you're 
trying to do.

I will say that one of the most important aspects of XML, as opposed to 
say OO programming, is that it covers both of these cases reasonably 
directly (though XML can be a pretty clumsy way to encode detailed logic 
or instructions).  To just say "Noah's phone number is 555-1234" in Java 
really isn't straightforward, though there certainly are Java idioms 
(getPhoneNumber(), setPhoneNumber)) that approximate it.  Having data that 

can be reused in many different ways is very important.

Noah

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
--------------------------------------








"Fraser Goffin" <goffinf@googlemail.com>
04/10/2008 04:23 AM
 
        To:     "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>, 
xml-dev@lists.xml.org
        cc:     (bcc: Noah Mendelsohn/Cambridge/IBM)
        Subject:        Re: [xml-dev] Defining an XML vocabulary: specify 
syntax, semantics, and BEHAVIOR?


To some extent the behavioural and semantic coupling are perhaps the
most useful parts of the vocabulary insofar as interop is concerned.
How do suggest that this information is conveyed beyond the basic
syntactical convention (i.e. an XML instance element called 'Book' in
the namespace 'urn:TreatThisAsALiteraryTextType' MUST have a specific
meaning and MUST be processed in a specific way).

For most custom vocabularies (I mean one that I might create between a
trading partner and myself) today this level of specification is
typically conveyed 'out of band' right, that is, there is nothing
beyond the naming convention to express it ?

Does the semantic web have anything to offer ?

Fraser.

On 09/04/2008, bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com> wrote:
> >  QUESTIONS
> >
> >  1. When defining an XML vocabulary, should behavioral information
> >  always be specified?
> no.
> >
> >  2. Does it make sense to define an XML vocabulary without specifying
> >  behavioral information?
> yes
> >  3. Are there two categories of XML vocabularies:
> >
> >  (a) XML vocabularies with behavioral instructions
> >  (b) XML vocabularies without behavioral instructions
> >
> yes. Although I think vocabularies without behavioral instructions are
> vocabularies that would normally be understood as purely data
> specifying in nature.
>
> >  As shown above, XSLT, XML Schema, and XHTML are XML vocabularies that
> >  fall in the first category.
> >
> >  Consider a "Book XML vocabulary."  Here's a sample document that
> >  illustrates the Book XML vocabulary:
> >
> >  <?xml version="1.0"?>
> >  <Book>
> >     <Title>The Wisdom of Crowds</Title>
> >     <Author>James Surowiecki</Author>
> >     <Date>2005</Date>
> >     <ISBN>0-385-72170-6</ISBN>
> >     <Publisher>Anchor Books</Publisher>
> >  </Book>
> >
> >  Suppose I write a specification for this XML vocabulary.  For each
> >  element I specify its contents and the intended usage.  But suppose
> >  that I don't instruct application developers on the (default and/or
> >  mandatory) behavior of each element.  How will I certify that the
> >  application is compliant?
>
>
> Because the general purpose of a Book vocabulary in all the examples
> I've seen is in the holding of book specific data. There are of course
> real world Book specifying vocabularies that are concerned with how a
> 'book' must behave, the behavior being specific to a particular type
> of media.
>
> Cheers,
> Bryan Rasmussen
>
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