Re: story or not?

On 02/16/2015 03:21 AM, Erik Wilde wrote:
> hello elf.
hi erik,

> 
> On 2015-02-15 13:42, ☮ elf Pavlik ☮ wrote:
>> On 02/12/2015 05:55 PM, Erik Wilde wrote:
>>> i do understand that i can explicitly "cast" activities to possibly
>>> multiple types with constructs such as:
>>> "@type": ["Like", "Floop", "Respond"]
>>> but that to me (and to other people, i would assume) then looks as if i
>>> MUST do this explicit casting if i want the vocabulary's type hierarchy
>>> to be reliably represented in my activities.
>>> i am fine doing this if AS2 tells me to do it. what i think is not so
>>> great is that if i *don't* do it and simply use a single type, then some
>>> consumers will still interpret this as meaning the above, and some
>>> don't.
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-activitystreams-core-20150129/#fig-an-object-that-is-both-a-place-and-a-gr-location
>>
>>
>> Would you like to create a pull request which adds such explicit *MUST*?
> 
> i don't think that would be appropriate. and it still would need
> clarification and a processing model to explain how it works.
> 
> for example, if we say the entire vocabulary class hierarchy MUST be
> serialized into AS, then what does it mean when an AS object still only
> claims it is a "Floop"? does it have to be discarded? or is it only a
> subclass of the virtual überclass "Activity"?
> 
> or what if a "Floop" says it is a "Like", but does not say it is a
> "Respond"? does it have to be discarded?
> 
>> I see no problem with taking this path in AS2.0 spec and when reasoning
>> tools get more reasonable we will already have straight forward path to
>> drop this *MUST* in next one of next iterations.
> 
> this is not how standards work. if you make AS2 independent of
> reasoning, then this is how it will be. if you make reasoning mandatory,
> then you break every single implementation out there that is not doing
> it. you could make it mandatory in AS3, but that would be an entirely
> different thing from AS2, because it would behave very differently.
> 
> i have to admit that i am a bit surprised that nobody seems to have
> questions or issues about this. for our decentralized model, it is
> essential that AS is well-defined, and currently, it is not, at least
> not for this issue of how vocabulary hierarchy is serialized and processed.
> 
> if, as james said, the current idea is that using the class hierarchy is
> optional, then we definitely have to model around that and make the
> processing model more robust in our vocabulary models. i would see that
> as very unfortunate, since a lot of the intended expressivity ('give me
> all "Respond" and i can trust you that you will give me "Like" as well')
> then is not something AS users can depend on. and i am still wondering
> why the hierarchy then even is part of the normative spec. we then could
> go back to AS1's flat model (which in my mind would be a helpful step
> forward anyway), because that's what we essentially have.
i very much appreciate that you state you concerns clearly and loudly!

i wonder if you can think of a way to break this broad topic into few
smaller bite-size chunks which we could track as official issues in wg
tracker? imo story which you have proposed takes us into a good direction.

also, once we further clarify our functional requirements, we will also
stay in a better position to evaluate various proposed ways of
satisfying them...