Re: Comments to the working draft 4 of DM

Hi Jun,

Paolo and I have made changes following your feedback.
Our responses can be found below.

This now completes WD4. Notes have been inserted in the document,
which we will tackle as part of WD5.

We are proposing to close ISSUE-274. Let us know if this is fine with you.
Regards,
Luc


 > These comments are respect to the DM working draft 4,
 > 
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/default/model/working-copy/towards-wd4.html. 

 > accessed on February 17, 2011.
 >
 > First of all, as my first time of reading the DM working draft, with my
 > very fresh pair of eyes, I would like to say well done to the group.
 > There are a lot of very interesting ideas in the model document, clearly
 > reflecting a lot of deep thinking about the problem domain. And I like
 > very much the position of the DM as for an interchange language. So well
 > done, guys!
 >
 > However, if the main goal of this new version of the working draft is to
 > simplify what we had, particularly to enable "an upgrade path, from
 > 'scruffy provenance' (term TBD), to 'precise provenance' (term TBD)", I
 > am not sure this goal was achieved!
 >
 > Here are what I think and why:
 >
 > 1. In the introduction section, there is no such introduction about
 > 'scruffy provenance' (term TBD), or 'precise provenance' (term TBD). I
 > think this is a key that should be brought in the front, and which
 > should be used to structure the rest of the document. And this is not
 > the case atm, IMO.

Terminology does not appear in the paper any more, as agreed by WG.
 >
 > 2. The Overview section: I am not sure I see much difference between
 > this section and the section giving definitions to the 'core'. I would
 > rather expect to see an overview of the model, for example, for the
 > scruffy and precise level, what terms and properties we have at each
 > level etc. I am sure Luc knows that the overview diagram needs update
 > and I couldn't read the figure properly even printed the doc with
 > high-resolution laser printer:)

Components will be put in place in WD5.

Note added to file.

 >
 > 3. I used the terminology of "terms" and "properties", but actually I
 > don't what this data model is. What do we mean by "data model"? Is it a
 > conceptual model, logical model, entity relationship model, or something
 > else? It's not clearly stated and I am confused what terminologies I
 > should used when referring to the model:(

TODO: we need to say it's a conceptual model

 >
 > 4. The Example section: Would it be a good idea to define an example up
 > in the front and use it throughout the whole document? I don't find a
 > description about an example in this section and I found it hard to
 > follow the 'examples' given in Section 3. And in the rest of the
 > document, examples from many different scenarios are used. I wonder
 > whether that prevents us from simplifying the reading of the spec.

Now we have descriptions of the examples up front.
The example is not intended to cover all concepts.
Hence, other smaller examples appear in the various sections.

 >
 > 5. Section 4, the PROM-DM Core: There are a lot of repetition with the
 > overview section. And I wonder what we mean by "core". The core almost
 > includes "all" the DM terms (apart from the few in section 5). My
 > understanding of "core" would be really the essential set of DM terms
 > that are must-haves to express the minimal provenance. IMO, the current
 > "core" is rather inclusive, and provides constructs that can be used to
 > support some rather complex provenance expressions.
 >
 > If we can agree on the notion of "scruffy" (minimal??) and "precise"
 > (extended??), maybe the core part can be used to correspond to the
 > "scruffy" part, and make it lighter, more succinct, and easier and
 > quicker to grasp and follow?


Core/common will be replaced by components in WD5.
See above regarding scruffy.

 >
 > 6. There are many cross-references that don't quite work in the current
 > working draft, like saying some terms are mentioned in the previous or
 > another section. I didn't include these problems here because I think
 > these were caused by the re-structuring. I could list them out once the
 > structure gets more stable.

We need a pass of link editing, as part of WD5.

 >
 > 7. There are also some technical points that I marked down in the
 > review, which I didn't raise here either, because I am 'new' to the
 > group and I don't want to re-open closed issues. What's the stage of the
 > technical part of DM? Are there still open technical discussions?
 >
 >
 > In my opinion I think the document still needs some more work on the
 > structuring and organization front to make it simplified.
 >
 > I think we should make a better use of the notion of "scruffy"
 > (minimal??) and "precise" (extended??), and use this to guide the
 > restructuring of the document.
 >
 > Thoughts?
 >
 > HTH,
 >
 > -- Jun
 >


On 19/02/2012 20:14, Jun Zhao wrote:
> These comments are respect to the DM working draft 4, 
> http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/default/model/working-copy/towards-wd4.html. 
> accessed on February 17, 2011.
>
> First of all, as my first time of reading the DM working draft, with 
> my very fresh pair of eyes, I would like to say well done to the 
> group. There are a lot of very interesting ideas in the model 
> document, clearly reflecting a lot of deep thinking about the problem 
> domain. And I like very much the position of the DM as for an 
> interchange language. So well done, guys!
>
> However, if the main goal of this new version of the working draft is 
> to simplify what we had, particularly to enable "an upgrade path, from 
> 'scruffy provenance' (term TBD), to 'precise provenance' (term TBD)", 
> I am not sure this goal was achieved!
>
> Here are what I think and why:
>
> 1. In the introduction section, there is no such introduction about 
> 'scruffy provenance' (term TBD), or 'precise provenance' (term TBD). I 
> think this is a key that should be brought in the front, and which 
> should be used to structure the rest of the document. And this is not 
> the case atm, IMO.
>
> 2. The Overview section: I am not sure I see much difference between 
> this section and the section giving definitions to the 'core'. I would 
> rather expect to see an overview of the model, for example, for the 
> scruffy and precise level, what terms and properties we have at each 
> level etc. I am sure Luc knows that the overview diagram needs update 
> and I couldn't read the figure properly even printed the doc with 
> high-resolution laser printer:)
>
> 3. I used the terminology of "terms" and "properties", but actually I 
> don't what this data model is. What do we mean by "data model"? Is it 
> a conceptual model, logical model, entity relationship model, or 
> something else? It's not clearly stated and I am confused what 
> terminologies I should used when referring to the model:(
>
> 4. The Example section: Would it be a good idea to define an example 
> up in the front and use it throughout the whole document? I don't find 
> a description about an example in this section and I found it hard to 
> follow the 'examples' given in Section 3. And in the rest of the 
> document, examples from many different scenarios are used. I wonder 
> whether that prevents us from simplifying the reading of the spec.
>
> 5. Section 4, the PROM-DM Core: There are a lot of repetition with the 
> overview section. And I wonder what we mean by "core". The core almost 
> includes "all" the DM terms (apart from the few in section 5). My 
> understanding of "core" would be really the essential set of DM terms 
> that are must-haves to express the minimal provenance. IMO, the 
> current "core" is rather inclusive, and provides constructs that can 
> be used to support some rather complex provenance expressions.
>
> If we can agree on the notion of "scruffy" (minimal??) and "precise" 
> (extended??), maybe the core part can be used to correspond to the 
> "scruffy" part, and make it lighter, more succinct, and easier and 
> quicker to grasp and follow?
>
> 6. There are many cross-references that don't quite work in the 
> current working draft, like saying some terms are mentioned in the 
> previous or another section. I didn't include these problems here 
> because I think these were caused by the re-structuring. I could list 
> them out once the structure gets more stable.
>
> 7. There are also some technical points that I marked down in the 
> review, which I didn't raise here either, because I am 'new' to the 
> group and I don't want to re-open closed issues. What's the stage of 
> the technical part of DM? Are there still open technical discussions?
>
>
> In my opinion I think the document still needs some more work on the 
> structuring and organization front to make it simplified.
>
> I think we should make a better use of the notion of "scruffy" 
> (minimal??) and "precise" (extended??), and use this to guide the 
> restructuring of the document.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> HTH,
>
> -- Jun
>
>
>
>

Received on Saturday, 3 March 2012 15:07:26 UTC