From patrick@durusau.net Sun May 27 04:29:57 2007
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Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 07:29:11 -0400
From: Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>
Subject: Re: Rob Weir's Comments: Page 01, Comment 02-07,
 "Electronc Annexes in a humanly readable, lined-numbered format"
In-reply-to: <003001c7a04c$7ba10fa0$72e32ee0$@com>
To: Rex Jaeschke <rex@RexJaeschke.com>
Cc: "'Dave Welsh'" <dave.welsh@microsoft.com>,
        "'Doug Mahugh'" <Doug.Mahugh@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>,
        "'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>
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X-ASG-Orig-Subj: Re: Rob Weir's Comments: Page 01, Comment 02-07,
 "Electronc Annexes in a humanly readable, lined-numbered format"
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Rex,

Rex Jaeschke wrote:

>In the "Proposed change by the MB" column, Rob proposes, "The annex should
>be provided in a humanly readable, lined-numbered format so it can be
>referenced and cited. Additionally, an electronic machine readable version
>can be provided according to Annex H"
>
>Certainly, the contents of the electronic annexes could be replicated
>in-line in the text. However, as Rob proposed, once there, for them to be
>usable, they'd need to have some mechanism so they can "be referenced and
>cited". Unfortunately, the editing guidelines for an IS do not allow it to
>contain line numbers. (I added line numbers to the DIS to make it easier to
>refer to lines under discussion. However, in the final standard, these will
>all be removed.) If anyone has a suggestion about how one might make such
>referencing possible, I'm "all ears".
>
>  
>
Agree on the combination of comments if possible and it seems to be 
likely in this case.

On the issue of numbering, the ISO Directives (Part 2) provide that:

> 6.6.10.3 Numbering
> If it is necessary to number some or all of the formulae in a document 
> in order to facilitate
> cross-reference, Arabic numbers in parentheses shall be used, 
> beginning with 1:

Granted the Directives don't directly address the issue of references to 
markup schemas (maybe that needs to change) but I think one could argue 
that a schema is a formula, at least in the sense that it is a formal 
model with its own grammar, much in the same way that a formula follows 
particular rules.

In ISO/IEC 26300 we did not number the text but did number the schema 
fragments (which can be extracted to compose the entire schema) in the 
text.

I don't see a downside to a numbered schema document. (Well, other than 
it would have to remain in synch with the electronic annex.) It 
certainly should make reporting of errata easier as well as discussion 
of the schema in the first instance.

I think it would be fairly easy to get an informal expresssion of 
opinion from ISO on the acceptability of a numbered schema document in 
addition to an electronic annex.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

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! 


