[wg11] Re: [step-os] Using STEPMod XML Representation of EXPRESS

[David Price]

Hi Ed,

I think you misunderstand my interests at the moment. Two responses to try
and clarify my views on this.

1-----

> > So, my question is . Are people generally comfortable with using the
> > STEPMod XML representation of EXPRESS as the de facto standard for
> > open-source STEP work?
> 
> Note how this conveniently views "open-source STEP work" as a different
> category of effort, requiring different standards, from "in-house STEP
> work" or "proprietary product STEP work".  What is sauce for the goose
> is evidently unsuitable for the gander in the UK.  (But then British
> cooking has never been highly regarded. ;-)

At the moment, I absolutely do consider my open-source work as outside the
standards world. It is of course standards-based, but it is basically a sand
box in which I play. I was trying to ask if others were comfortable using
this non-standard EXPRESS/XML in their sand box too. I don't see the problem
with experimenting outside the SC4 box in order to know what to do when
stepping back inside the box. The main point of exff today is to show what's
possible, and if I have to bend the rules temporarily, so be it. Over time,
I do expect exff translators to conform to the standards... but I'm not
worried about that just yet.


2------

> > I do not believe the text for the Part 28 E2 standard, if it is needed,
> is a
> > suitable replacement for the DTD user guide Josh proposed. I expect the
> user
> > guide would more closely resemble the text in Part 11 than anything Part
> 28
> > needs.
> 
> An interesting view:  The text that explains how to use this set of XML
> objects to convey an EXPRESS schema will be markedly different if it is
> in a technical report for the 'open-source STEP developer' community
> from what it would be in a Standard for the (unwashed?) STEP developer
> community.
> 
> Only in SC4 could such a mindset be possible:  Our standards are
> unintelligible, whereas our technical reports are lucid.  The problem,
> of course, is that this is largely valid!  ;-)  Josh's text would be a
> welcome departure.  But then David seems to think Part 11 is
> intelligible, and Martin insists that Part 21 is clear and lucid; so
> such a departure would not be so atypical for WG11.

UML is published and freely available from OMG and yet there are lots of
books, tutorials and user guides on UML. The same applies to any programming
language as well ... so I don't understand the criticism for wanting to do
the same thing for EXPRESS/XML. I've already started something along these
lines on exff ( http://www.exff.org/docs/express_guide.html ) and was hoping
to relate what Josh wrote for the DTD to that somehow. It's different from
the EXPRESS LRM/Part 28 text because it's informal and perhaps even slightly
inaccurate if glossing over complexity helps people just getting started.

Cheers,
David