[sc34wg3] DM conformance

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| I'm not sure we really *care* about DM conformance, either. If
| standards are about interoperability, then surely conformance is
| what enables interoperability, and it should be tailored to that
| end. Now, how does the DM actually affect interoperability? I don't
| think it does; it's just a tool used to define what XTM, TMQL, and
| TMCL actually mean. People must conform to XTM, TMQL, or TMCL, but I
| don't see how they can conform to the DM.

* Michel Biezunski
| 
| When you mean conformance XTM, TMQL and TMCL as opposed to
| conformance to the data model? do you mean conformance to the
| syntax?

In the case of XTM, yes, though that means both rejecting invalid XTM
files and interpreting XTM correctly.

The same applies to TMCL: processors must be able to reject invalid
TMCL schemas, and also implement the is-valid(TM, schema) function so
that it returns true when it should and false when it should.

And so on for TMQL.

| This discussion is very interesting, and it's at the core of the
| credibility of the standard and its future to figure out what is the
| precise level of conformance that we need.

Agreed.
 
| My understanding is that there are two levels here: the model and
| its interpretation(s). What the data model is doing is making
| explicit the interpretation of what's involved in the various
| syntaxes. 

Exactly!

| What we are trying to do, if I understand it, is to constrain the
| interpretations in such a way that conformance means actually
| something so that we'll have TM application interoperability and TM
| software interoperability, which by the way are two different
| things. At the same time we also want to allow more to be part of
| that interchange.
| 
| Does this echo your question?

Yes, it does. You're pretty much saying what I think.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
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