[sc34wg3] Look Ma! No Properties!

[Steve Pepper]

* Jan Algermissen:

| > I'm curious to know why the examples Lars Marius and I gave
| > in http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0497.htm don't qualify
| > as "purely declarative merging rules". 
| 
| I can't see one that does not involve procedural aspects (but
| you might want to point me to one that I missed).

The queries in UC1, UC2 and UC5 are intended to *declare* merging
rules. Any merging that occurs as a result is surely procedural
by definition, however it is implemented?

| Maybe our understanding of 'declarativeness' differs, though.

Hmm. Maybe. I guess it must, if you still don't think our
query examples can be used declaratively.

| It is more precise to say that Robert's 'merging rules' are
| constraints on the topic map and that I have not seen *this*
| before.

The thinking behind the examples we gave would be that they,
too, would be constraints on the topic map, expressed as
queries, using TMCL.

| Ok?

Yes, if you now agree that our merging rule examples also can
be viewed as constraints on the topic map! (In that case, we
obviously did not explain our intent clearly enough in N497.)

Not OK if you don't agree :-)

Steve