From Doug.Mahugh@microsoft.com Thu May 24 11:56:32 2007
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Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 11:55:53 -0700
From: Doug Mahugh <Doug.Mahugh@microsoft.com>
Subject: RE: Doug's disagreement
In-reply-to: <4655C0AA.4080102@durusau.net>
To: "patrick@durusau.net" <patrick@durusau.net>
Cc: Dave Welsh <Dave.Welsh@microsoft.com>, Frank Farance <frank@farance.com>,
        Jerry Smith <jerry.smith@disa.mil>, Jon Bosak <jon.bosak@sun.com>,
        "Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E" <Leonard.Levine@disa.mil>,
        Norm Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>, "Lynne A. Price" <lprice@txstruct.com>,
        Rex Jaeschke <rex@RexJaeschke.com>,
        Richard Barber <Richard.Barber@mindjet.com>,
        Robert Weir <robert_weir@us.ibm.com>,
        Steve Carton <steve.carton@retrievalsystems.com>,
        Tim Schoechle <timothy@schoechle.org>,
        "Mason, James David (MXM)" <masonjd@y12.doe.gov>,
        Kevin Trainor <ktrainor@ligent.net>,
        Eduardo Gutentag <Eduardo.Gutentag@sun.com>
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Patrick, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here.

You have repeatedly asked me to explain why I disagreed with your proposed narrow definition of DIS 29500's scope.  You've suggested that my failure to explain why I disagree limits the effectiveness of our dialog, and you've made the point that I'm not explaining why I disagree with you to the group four different times now, in three different emails.  And so I've repeated the reason why I disagree, which I had stated in my very first email on this topic, yet again.

My view of the relative importance of various aspects of DIS 29500 has changed considerably as a result of spending so much time face-to-face with developers who are trying to implement the spec.  (Ask anyone who has attended more than one of these workshops I do -- the focus and content has changed considerably since March, based on constant feedback about what developers are actually interested in.)  Perhaps that's not "real standards work" or whatever, but it's my actual experience, and it was an honest answer to your question of why I believe what I believe.

I don't know what else to say.  My opinion was not based on reading specifications for various programming languages, it was based on talking to implementers of DIS 29500.  You have a right to disrespect my work if you'd like, but must we really get into things like "I must admit that I am puzzled that when I ask for support in the proposal for your position I get marketing stories?"  I don't see the relationship between that comment and anything that has been said on this thread, frankly.

Regards,
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:43 AM
To: Doug Mahugh
Cc: Dave Welsh; Frank Farance; Jerry Smith; Jon Bosak; Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E; Norm Walsh; Lynne A. Price; Rex Jaeschke; Richard Barber; Robert Weir; Steve Carton; Tim Schoechle; Mason, James David (MXM); Kevin Trainor; Eduardo Gutentag
Subject: Re: Doug's disagreement

Doug,

Doug Mahugh wrote:

>Hi Patrick,
>
>I agree that representing a pre-existing binary format is part of the scope of DIS 29500.  But you've gone far beyond the question of whether that's part of the scope -- you've now moved into recommending that a variety of things be removed because they're not encompassed by that statement.
>
>So the nature of the conclusions you're reaching makes it clear that your position is that representation of a pre-existing binary format is the sole purpose of DIS 29500.  I can't see any other way to interpret a statement like this one, for example: "Such capabilities were not present in the pre-existing binary format for which DIS 29500 specifies an XML representation and as such is clearly out of scope for DIS 29500."  (OPC-Durusau-15.pdf)
>
>My reason for disagreeing with that limited definition of the scope of DIS 29500 was stated in my first email on this topic last week: "I teach Open XML workshops for developers, and the capability to embed custom schemas into documents is something many developers find useful and exciting."  After leading workshops on this topic for about 250 developers over the last couple of months, they tell me that this capability is the most useful and important new capability that DIS 29500 offers them.  Not "one of many on the list," but the single most useful thing.  Compatibility with the binary formats, on the other hand, is of interest to very few developers -- only those building word-processing applications, in my experience, which is an extremely small subset of developers in general.
>
>
>
First of all, there are rules for the development of ISO standards and
as far as I know, none of them call for ah hoc opinion surveys for the
interpretaton of those rules.

Second, I am dealing with the text of DIS 29500 and not public opinion.
I posted a rather long post this morning on the notion of scope and how
it relates to DIS 29500.

>I'm just listening to what actual implementers of the spec have to say, and not offering any theories of my own here.  Defining the scope of DIS 29500 in a way that makes the thing most developers find most useful "outside scope" feels forced to me.
>
>
>
It is a question of how it is to be organized. Either in parts or as
separate standards each with its own scope statement.

I really don't know what is unclear about that.

Let's take an example (from a text that is a standard):

> This International Standard specifies requirements for implementations
> of the C + + programming language.
> The first such requirement is that they implement the language, and so
> this International Standard also
> defines C + +. Other requirements and relaxations of the first
> requirement appear at various places within this
> International Standard.
> C + + is a general purpose programming language based on the C
> programming language as described in
> ISO/IEC 9899:1990 Programming languages - C (1.2). In addition to the
> facilities provided by C, C + +
> provides additional data types, classes, templates, exceptions,
> namespaces, inline functions, operator overloading,
> function name overloading, references, free store management
> operators, and additional library
> facilities.

Now, compare that to DIS 29500:

> This Standard defines Office Open XML's vocabularies and document
> representation and packaging. It also
> specifies requirements for consumers and producers of Office Open XML.

Do you notice any differences?

OK, let's take another example:

> This International Standard specifies the form and establishes the
> interpretation of programs written in the
> C# programming language. It specifies
> * The representation of C# programs;
> * The syntax and constraints of the C# language;
> * The semantic rules for interpreting C# programs;
> * The restrictions and limits imposed by a conforming implementation
> of C#.
> This International Standard does not specify
> * The mechanism by which C# programs are transformed for use by a
> data-processing system;
> * The mechanism by which C# applications are invoked for use by a
> data-processing system;
> * The mechanism by which input data are transformed for use by a C#
> application;
> * The mechanism by which output data are transformed after being
> produced by a C# application;
> * The size or complexity of a program and its data that will exceed
> the capacity of any specific dataprocessing
> system or the capacity of a particular processor;
> * All minimal requirements of a data-processing system that is capable
> of supporting a conforming
> implementation.

Again, compare DIS 29500:

> This Standard defines Office Open XML's vocabularies and document
> representation and packaging. It also
> specifies requirements for consumers and producers of Office Open XML.

Do you see any differences?

With either of the examples I cited (C++ and C#, respectively), it is
immediately obvious what is in (as well as out) of scope for the standard.

This is *not* about excluding anything useful from standardization.

It is about having an appropriate scope for each standard or part thereof.

This is common to all ISO standards so I was presuming a common ground
on which to base my comments.

I must admit that I am puzzled that when I ask for support in the
proposal for your position I get marketing stories.

To the extent that developers, or anyone else, has useful comments to
make about the substance of the proposal, I am very interested.
Generalize support or opposition to it is of little (read no) interest
to me.

Hope you are having a great day!

PS: I will ask Jim Mason to make some comments on scope. You could also
ask someone very familiar with the C++ and C# standards if they would
like to comment on the scope issue.

>- Doug
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
>Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 5:19 AM
>To: Dave Welsh; Doug Mahugh; Frank Farance; Jerry Smith; Jon Bosak; Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E; Norm Walsh; Lynne A. Price; Rex Jaeschke; Richard Barber; Robert Weir; Steve Carton; Tim Schoechle; Mason, James David (MXM); Kevin Trainor; Eduardo Gutentag
>Subject: Doug's disagreement
>
>Greetings!
>
>I am aware that Doug disagrees with my assessment that DIS 29500 is
>concerned with representing a pre-existing binary format in XML. That
>much I got.
>
>What I don't know is why?
>
>Since sometimes my questions get lost in prose, let me be real short and
>explicit:
>
>1. Yes, DIS 29500 has a number of useful and possilbly separate parts of
>a single standard, like custom schemas.
>
>2. OK, so is a part of DIS 29500 about representing a pre-existing
>binary format in XML?
>
>3. If so, what parts?
>
>4. If no part of DIS 29500 is about representing a pre-existing binary
>format in XML, please state what portions of the documents as filed by
>Ecma (we are supposed to be reviewing the proposal as submitted and
>written) leads to that conclusion  (by part and section).
>
>I am trying to be careful to ground my questions and comments on the
>ISO/JTC 1 Directives and the submission *as written.* I understand the
>process to be one of evaluating the proposal that was submitted. Not as
>we might have submitted it, which I suspect would be a very different thing.
>
>I hope everyone is having a great day!
>
>Patrick
>
>--
>Patrick Durusau
>Patrick@Durusau.net
>Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
>Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
>Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
>
>Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!
>
>
>
>
>

--
Patrick Durusau
Patrick@Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!


