Proposed Goals, Rev. 2

David Ornstein davido at pragmaticainc.com
Thu May 28 17:21:15 BST 1998


Paul Prescod wrote:
> Don Park wrote:
> >
> > 1. Proposed Goals would be quite a lot less confusing if SSD could be
> > refered to as "XSD Document".
>
> I prefer to keep the word "document" buried in the acronym because in
> discussions of SDD verification, it should be reserved to mean the
> document being verified. Otherwise all confusion will break loose.

And then Don Park wrote:

> Well, your reasons are understandable but XSD and SDD confuses me still.
> One of the things I did not like about DTD is that it is a document format
> different from XML documents.  Seperating XSD and SDD fuels that
confusion.

To which Paul prescod replied:

>I understand. I prefer "XSchema" as both the name of the standard and as
>the type of document.


FWIW, I think that the extra confusion of having two names (SDD and XSD)
instead of one is going to be an endless source of confusion and trouble.
Now is the only possible time to avoid that.  One this gets going, we
certainly won't be able to change terminology...

Most of the world (for better or worse) I think unconsciously believes:

	one acronym = one standard[1]

I think this is a natural outgrowth of human languages where you have a noun
as a single word.  The noun plays the role of subject or object in a
sentence.  If you want to make a more complex subject or object, you build a
noun phrase by using a noun and an adjective -- for example, "XSD Document."

I understand, however, Paul's concern about the possible confusion between
and XSD "document" and a "document" more generally.

What's wrong with "XSD" as the name of the standard/work and "an XSD" as
what we've been thinking of as an SDD?

I know this is a pretty loose (and subjective) analysis, but I'd really like
to see just one name (XSD = first choice, XSchema = second choice).

-----------------------------------------
David Ornstein
Pragmatica, Inc.
http://www.pragmaticainc.com/
ICQ #6739632

[1] one standard, or, more generally, a single conceptual pieces of work.


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