[tmql-wg] Proposed changes to existing requirements

[Robert Barta]

On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 10:59:39PM +0200, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> 
> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> |   "TMQL should be able to query topic maps stored in a distributed
> |   fashion on different TMQL processors."
> 
> * Robert Barta
> | 
> | Does this also include exposing TMQL functionality as a 'web
> | service'?
> 
> It does not. I would see that as a separate requirement, really. 

So do I. But then we should elaborate it as, say:

  "TMQL should provide (features|mechanisms|language constructs) to
   access Topic Maps (or parts thereof) from different TM repositories".

Which implies that a 'TM repository' must be defined somewhere. Maybe
this could then be merged with the issue last in this email.

> Do you think we should put the web services thing in as a requirement?

Not as a hard requirement. (I would expect a TM-WS to be a rather
useful application scenario, though.)

> | Section 3.4 is a bit cryptic, but I have trouble to suggest a
> | reasonable improvement.
> 
> I can see what you mean. This was the result of considerable
> discussion on this mailing list, and I'm very happy with it, but it
> may well need that you have to have that context to be able to
> decipher it. 
> 
> If you can ask questions about what is unclear that might help.

Hmmm, for instance:

   Inter-query context

   This is the execution context for TMQL queries, as modified by
   previous queries. It is not clear what this context may contain.

If previous queries Q_1..Q_N-1 have _any_ effect on a particular Q_N,
then this implies that this effect is the effect of the LAST query
Q_N-1. (At least if we talk about the usual state machines).

(a) This means the 'queries' can be safely replaced by 'last query'.

If a previous query had _any_ effect, then this can only be via the
state of particular variable/objects. But this is (b) already captured
in the processing environment.

So the Inter-query seems to be rather redundant to me. Unless I miss
something here.

\rho