Re: Comments to the working draft 4 of DM

Tracker, this is now ISSUE-274

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 Wednesday, 29 February 2012 05:25:55 UTC