Re: [cam] FW: CAM Thoughts

Title: Message

Martin,

 

Thanks for forwarding Chris' notes.  First 
item - I checked his membership - and 

he should be able to post - he signed up 
from -  - 
so Kavi 

will look for a match on that sender.

 

I really like the idea of CAM-base, CAM-patterns, 
CAM-repositories as the three

components.

 

And then the points on schema-compatiblity are well 
noted.  As Chris' notes - the

recursive functionality is intended to replicate a 
structure, not insert it arbitarily - 

(we have insertTree() to cover those 
needs).

 

We have also received many good comments from the 
OASIS review period.

 

What I'd like to do next is consolidate all this 
into a new draft - rather than rush

out a V1.0 - and make sure we cover all these good 
suggestions.  I've just not

have time to get to this with work pressures - and 
looking right now at my

schedule - its going to be July before I can 
realistically dedicate solid time to

it.  Since I've also noticed that many of our 
examples  in the spec' are now

deprecated by the latest schema - its quite a task 
to get this all done.

 

Anyway - that's my sense for now - that we can work 
over the summer,

completing the V1.0 details and then have that 
ready late August to 

re-present to OASIS formally.  This also gives 
us time to work with some

more implementations and really validate V1.0 some 
more.

 

BTW - ITR - working with financial transactions 
that I'm doing right now I just 

uncovered the need for basic date functions - today() and simple 
date 

comparison +1D, -7D, +1M, +5Y, and so on - to augment the XPath 

comparisons we're using.  I'll write something 
up in email on that later 

this week.

 

Thanks, DW

  
----- Original Message ----- 

  
From: 
   

  
To:  

  
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 4:36 AM

  
Subject: [cam] FW: CAM Thoughts

  

  
From: Hipson,C,Chris,XSJ61 HIPSONC R 
  
Sent: 13 May 2004 15:16
To: Roberts,MME,Martin,XSG3 
  R
Subject: CAM Thoughts

  
    

    
Hi 
    Martin

    
 

    
Having discovered that I can’t 
    post to the CAM list [bad attendance record I 
    guess J] I thought I’d run a few 
    thoughts by you.

    
 

    
Overall CAM looks nice although I imagine 
    it won’t fly well with existing schema fanatics J  [not 
    complex enough].

    
 

    
I like the way that CAM 
    provides ‘deterministic flexibility’ sidestepping the XML-Schema issue that 
    a flexible schema makes everything optional.

    
However assuming that users will start from existing 
    XML there appear to be some omissions?

    
1)      
    There is no 
    predicate support for namespaces.  [Yes I know you don’t like them but 
    if you need to meet existing XML documents half way then you’re going to 
    need this?]

    
2)      
    In XML-Schema 
    xs:all allows a ‘group’ of elements to appear in any order rather then in 
    the order listed. While I doubt there’s much demand for this in business 
    documents it would be very hard to reproduce in CAM 
    without explicit support? So may be worth adding?

    
 

    makeRecursive
    
Requires a StructureID which is only available as an 
    Advanced Option? But the predicate itself is not itself an Advanced 
    option?

    
“Donates that the specified 
    parent element can occur recursively as a child of this 
    parent.”

    
Does this mean that a block of XML could appear 
    anywhere in the tree under the 
    parent? 

    
This would seem excessively liberal and would 
    prevent any hope of building an XML-Schema from a CAM 
    template as David Webber would like to do?

    
Surely you need to have some ‘link’ from the point 
    the recursion is ‘inserted’ to the structure that is to be 
    ‘recursed’?

    
Or have a missed 
    something?????????

    
 

    
Packaging – trivial observation but the current 
    vogue [at least in web services J] 
    is to try and make large specs appear smaller by chopping them 
    up!

    
In the case of CAM 
    this might fly quite nicely as CAM Base would equate to your stuff and 
    CAM Patterns and 
    CAM Repositories to 
    Davids?

    
 

    
How’s the selling process going with UBL?  
    Where does it sit with respect to ebXML [which it obviously sits quite well 
    with]? And are you looking anywhere else?  ISO have for instance DSDL 
    which is a schema collective wrapped round XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron 
    etc. etc. – might offer some scope for feedback if nothing 
    else?

    
 

    
Cheers Chris 
    Hipson

    
Web Service Technology 
    Consultant

    
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the 
    facts." Albert Einstein

    
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