Draft Spec mark 2

Jim Croft jrc at ANBG.GOV.AU
Mon Sep 4 08:38:17 CEST 2000


Una wrote:

>But the discussion here keeps slipping into implementation issues
>and forgetting about the underlying abstractions.

This is so true and has dogged this list ever since it started - at this
stage we need to be constantly on guard against dropping to quickly into
building something before we have properly defined the scope of the project.

>We could conduct this discussion in PERL code too.  (Hey, why not?)

Because PERL is yucky, that's why...  :)

>Why not forget the codes
>(or pseudo codes) and use ordinary words that we all understand?  *Then*
>decide which language (if any) to implement it in, *after* we all agree
>what "it" is.

That is what I am waiting for...  XML seems to be a fairly intuitive
contemporary way of describing things and it seems to be a reasonable thing
to use for the time being...  Remember our very first attempts to do it in
EBNF?  Same idea, different language, but at the time, I do not think many
of us were aware of what we were trying to achieve...  This was a graphic
example of an idea probably being right, but if people can not understand
and embrace it, it will not get anywhere...

Still not 100% sure what 'it' is, but I think with the most recent
discussions we are getting closer...

jim




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