TMCL requirements; Was: [sc34wg3] a new name for the RM

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Martin Bryan
| 
| The point that Michel was making is that TMCL statements, whatever
| form they might take, need to be human parsable so that users can
| validate whether or not the constraints have been met. If the
| language is so convoluted that only a program can implement it then
| it will be a complete failure. 

I agree completely. Humans will be writing the TMCL schemas in most
cases, and they need to be able to read and understand what they've
written.

| Unless the end-users understand what they are doing, and why,
| writing any formal descripition of the language is irrelevant.

End-users is something else, I think. If we succeed they won't even
know they are using topic maps. (In fact, that's true in a lot of
cases already.)

| Whether the tutorial forms an introduction to the standard, and
| informative annex or a separate TR is irrelevant. What is vital is
| that the human understandable version is available for review at the
| same time as the formal material so that we can get adequate
| feedback from the user community as well as the few developers able
| to understand any formal definitions.

Makes sense to me.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >