- From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:59:09 -0500
- To: public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org
I believe that the DAWG transition request to CR (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/crq349) mischaracterises my objections expressed in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg-comments/2006Feb/0028 of 22 February 2006 to SPARQL Query Language for RDF, W3C Working Draft 20 February 2006 http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/. I have already responded to this list concerning this mis-characterisation, in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg-comments/2006Mar/0057.html of 22 March 2006, with the following wording: My view is that my message points out some deficiencies in the definitions underlying the design of BGP querying. I thus do not see how my message can possibly be characterised as not demonstrating design errors. However, in the DAWG transition request to CR, my objections are characterised as being essentially editorial. I therefore do not believe that the DAWG transition request to CR has a faithful rendering of the outstanding dissent. Peter F. Patel-Schneider Bell Labs Research The relevant portion of http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/crq349 is: On 22 February, Peter F. Patel-Schneider sent comments on Section 1 and Section 2 of SPARQL Query Language for RDF <http://www.w3.org/mid/20060222.185654.133907622.pfps@research.bell-labs.com>: In general I found the first two sections of the document *very* hard to understand. The mixing of definitions, explanation, information, etc. confused me over and over again. I strongly suggest an organization something like: * Introduction (informative) * Formal development (normative) o Underlying notions (normative) o Patterns and matching (normative) * SPARQL syntax (normative) * Informal narrative (informative) * Examples (informative) I also found that things that didn't need to be explained were explained, and things that did need to be explained were not explained. A major example of the latter is the role of the scoping graph. Examples showing why E-matching is defined the way it is would be particularly useful. Because of the problems I see in Section 2, I do not feel that I can adequately understand the remainder of the document. Because of these problems I do not feel that this document should be advanced to the next stage in the W3C recommendation process without going through another last-call stage. Our response of 22 March <http://www.w3.org/mid/1143049602.12963.360.camel@dirk.w3.org> is: After perhaps overly brief consideration of your comments, we are somewhat sympathetic to your concerns about organization and clarity; however, we also have schedule considerations and the investment in other reviewers. Re-organizing the document at this stage would delay things considerably; it's not even clear that we could get a sufficient number of reviewers to take another look before CR. The specific examples you give below are very valuable; I am marking this thread [needstest], which allows us to find it more easily during CR and integrate the examples you give into our test suite. We have also discussed the possibility of significant organizational changes after CR, such as moving the formal definitions to the back of the document. As far as I can tell, all of the examples you give are useful clarification questions, but they do not demonstrate design errors. If they do, in fact, demonstrate design errors, I'm reasonably confident we will discover that as we integrate them into our test suite during CR. Are you, by chance, satisfied by this response, which does not involve making the changes you request at this time, but includes an offer to give them due consideration after we request CR? If not, there's no need to reply; I'm marking this comment down as outstanding dissent unless I hear otherwise.
Received on Thursday, 30 March 2006 01:00:15 UTC