RE: PROV-ISSUE-410 (prov-primer-review): Feedback on Primer document [Primer]

Hello Stephen,

Thanks very much for the detailed review. Some responses:

(1): I understand your point, though always felt it was important to show that PROV is not for a single level of granularity, as I've encountered misunderstanding in the past. I would like to leave addressing this issue until after I have reviewed the revised PROV-Constraints, to ensure I understand what is inconsistent. Further, being practical, removing the multiple granularities from throughout the examples would take me more time than is available before the coming release. From looking at the mails you linked to, I don't think there's anything incorrect about the PROV in the primer, and it is certainly not something that the PROV-DM prevents, so I assume it is not a blocking issue for releasing this version?

(2), (6): I agree that consistency is good, but I think we have to be careful that it is not provided at the coherence of each document, given their different purposes. The primer does not illustrate wasInformedBy or many PROV-O relations, so I recommend nothing is changed here.

(3): Agreed and clarified.

(4): Agreed. I don't think the relation you mention existed when I added time to the primer. I've gone further than you suggest and used only generatedAtTime, as the qualified relation just gives unnecessary complexity.

(5): Yes. I'm not sure about ex:parameter, but the relation between prov:role and prov:type were discussed on the mailing list before, and I think it's reasonable that they are related but helpfully distinguished as they have different connotations.

(7): Actually, wasRevisionOf is described and exemplified between both data sets and charts. The figure just shows one of these for brevity. You are right, though, that the wasRevisionOf link between charts was never depicted, and I've added this to the large visualisation at the end of the primer.

(8): Thanks, fixed.

(9): The reference URLs redirect to the most recent published versions of the documents. Therefore, when the documents are next published as a batch, the DM link will be the correct (most recent) one.

Thanks,
Simon

Dr Simon Miles
Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics
Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
+44 (0)20 7848 1166

Transparent Provenance Derivation for User Decisions:
http://eprints.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/1400/
________________________________________
From: Cresswell, Stephen [stephen.cresswell@tso.co.uk]
Sent: 01 July 2012 21:33
To: Provenance Working Group
Subject: RE: PROV-ISSUE-410 (prov-primer-review): Feedback on Primer document   [Primer]

Comments on primer version at link Simon sent here:
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/default/primer/Primer.html
(I note that the date is continuously updating on this page).

Review questions:

- Is it intuitive, readable, and an appropriate introduction to the
other documents?

Yes - clear and well structured.

- Do you judge it to be comprehensible to the range of communities that
might use PROV?

Yes.

- Is the new way of presenting examples, with choice of format, helpful?

Yes (but there is sometimes a choice on how to map to RDF).

- Are the examples up to date with regard to PROV-O and PROV-N?

As far as I can tell.
Some specific comments below - mostly minor - only (1) seems important:

(1) - We encounter the generation of ex:chart1 at two different levels
of granularity.  At the end of Section 3.10, these occur together on the
same graph, with ex:chart1 generated by both ex:compile and
ex:illustrate. There were some discussions about this situation
previously on the mailing list:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-prov-comments/2012May/0019.ht
ml
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-prov-wg/2012May/0285.html
It definitely breaks the unique-generation constraint of
PROV-constraints, (but it seems excused if you call it scruffy?), and
makes the diagram confusing.

(2) - Figure (unnamed) at start of section 2 used to match the one in
PROV-DM, but the one in PROV-DM now includes "WasInformedBy" as core
concept.

(3) - I think readers might wonder why a wasRevisionOf relation is used
between ex:dataset2 and ex:dataset1, whereas an alternateOf relation is
used between ex:articleV2 and ex:articleV1.  It seems that both
relations are applicable in both cases, and according to
PROV-constraints wasRevisionOf implies alternateOf (but I think the
appropriate subproperty relationship is not in PROV-O?).  This choice
could be clarified in the example.

(4) - The primer illustrates generation time using a
prov:qualifiedGeneration and prov:atTime property.  It doesn't mention
we can state generation time of entity directly using
prov:generatedAtTime property.  It seems worth mentioning that.

(5) - [question provoked by reading primer, rather than criticism of
primer] There is an example in the primer which qualifies 'used' with a
role.  In PROV-DM, there is an example of using a user-defined
ex:parameter attribute for the same purpose.  A third way to do the same
thing, which wouldn't necessitate qualified involvements in the RDF
would be to use subproperties of prov:used.  Are we allowed to express
that in PROV-N using prov:type attribute?  I'm guessing we can't give
subproperty of prov:used, but we could express subclass of prov:Usage?

(6) - The running example is nearly the same as the one in the PROV-O
documentation, but doesn't quite align.  It might be worth making them
compatible.

(7) - Section 3.6, PROV-N and turtle examples show wasRevisionOf
relation between ex:chart2 and ex:chart1, but the diagrams show relation
between ex:dataset2 and ex:dataset1.

(8) - Section 3.9 Arguments reversed in PROV-N rendition of alternateOf
(which admittedly doesn't matter semantically).

(9) - References section - Is the reference to PROV-DM correct, as it
seems to pre-date the separation of PROV-N into a different document?


Stephen Cresswell


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker
> [mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org]
> Sent: 14 June 2012 16:25
> To: public-prov-wg@w3.org
> Subject: PROV-ISSUE-410 (prov-primer-review): Feedback on Primer
document
> [Primer]
>
> PROV-ISSUE-410 (prov-primer-review): Feedback on Primer document
[Primer]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/410
>
> Raised by: Simon Miles
> On product: Primer
>
> This is the issue to collect feedback on the primer document.
>
> Document to review is available from:
>
> http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/default/primer/Primer.html
>
> Questions:
>  - Is it intuitive, readable, and an appropriate introduction to the
other
> documents?
>  - Do you judge it to be comprehensible to the range of communities
that
> might use PROV?
>  - Is the new way of presenting examples, with choice of format,
helpful?
>  - Are the examples up to date with regard to PROV-O and PROV-N?
>
> Thanks,
> Simon
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Friday, 6 July 2012 17:20:53 UTC