Re: [xml-dev] Please stop writing specifications that cannot be parsed/p

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Roger, already standards from ISO and CEN are being published in NISO STS XML:

https://www.niso-sts.org/

And there some SDOs (Standards Development 
Organizations) that are building requirements 
into their STS XML so they can be harvested 
downstream after publishing by requirements 
management software tracking, for example, "may", "shall", "should", etc.:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556169/#holman-semantics2

I commend that paper I wrote regarding the 
identification of semantics (say, of requirements) in standards content.

I've co-founded a company in Ireland that is 
servicing the standards development community of 
SDOs with software that is publishing these 
richly-encoded XML documents into PDF, HTML, and DOCX:

https://RealtaOnline.com

Moreover, SDOs are looking to us to enrich their 
XML and we are experimenting with AI in this regard. Exciting stuff.

I'm delivering a presentation at JATS-Con 2023 
you may wish to attend to learn more about how 
Réalta Online is using standards such as XSLT and 
XSL-FO to enrich and publish standards with fidelity across output products:

https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/jats-con/2023/schedule2023a.html#1-1145

So I think all that is needed is an awareness 
campaign to make standards writers and SDOs aware 
that the technology exists already. We don't have 
to wait to be able to do what it is you are 
asking. It just has to be done with the tools at hand.

And not just for ISO and CEN standards. Hundreds 
of SDOs exist out there publishing thousands of 
standards documents. Please spread the word about 
NISO STS XML and the leverage they can get by 
adopting something that exists ... no-one has to 
invent something new to get what you are asking for.

I hope this is helpful.

. . . . . . . Ken

At 2023-05-25 19:57 +0000, Roger L Costello wrote:
> Dear Specification Writer,
>
> Please stop writing specifications that cannot 
> be parsed/processed by software. Please stop 
> formatting your specifications as Word and PDF. 
> Instead, use a format that is amenable to 
> machine processing. The XML format is ideal. We 
> want to analyze your specifications. We don't 
> want to spend dozens of hours screen-scraping your Word/PDF documents.
>
> If you simply must persist in writing Word/PDF 
> documents, then please write in a consistent way 
> so that we can screen-scrape without having to 
> write special case code. To illustrate, in one 
> of your specifications you provide a bunch of 
> tables with data; each table has many rows. In 
> some tables you reference a note. Here's a row with a note reference:
>
> 119 Approach Route (1) Note 1 5.7
>
> Here's another row with a note reference:
>
> 52 SID Ident (1) (Note 1) 5.78
>
> Why did you embed Note 1 within parentheses in 
> the second case but not the first? That's an 
> example of not being consistent. Such 
> inconsistencies make it difficult to do 
> screen-scraping. Please be consistent. If at all 
> possible, write a parser to parse the data that 
> you embed in your specification. This will 
> immediately inform you of any inconsistencies.
>
> Thank you,
> From the people who must read, understand, and analyze your specifications
>
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