Re: [OEP] "Classes as values": summary of the discussion so far and second draft $swbpd

I believe one original thought about our documents was that we would 
have a template that we would use to write up many different discussion 
topics.
i had originally thought that it could be viewed as one large running 
(interactive hyperlinked) document  that would have an overview section 
and pointers to each of the detailed discussions.
as it does seem that we will be doing some detailed discussions with 
writeups such as the one that natasha has led, it now seems most likely 
that we might consider a web publication of the discussions in note form 
probably saying in the introduction of each one that these notes are 
expected to be a part of a larger document and may evolve. 
one reason i say they may evolve is that both
- we might expect feedback from their publication
- we might find that we want to add new segments to our template as we 
evolve more of the discussions.

i also agree that we want to have an executive summary of any note that 
gets long   but having detail available for those who are really using 
our documents for a lot of guidance can be useful.

Deborah

Uschold, Michael F wrote:

>I agree with Jeremy that length limits often do produce better documents. It is a question of judgment, whether to leave something out because it is rambling vs. legitimate and very useful extra detail giving people deeper insights into an issue.
>
>Mike
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From: 	Jeremy Carroll [mailto:jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com] 
>Sent:	Wednesday, April 28, 2004 6:40 AM
>To:	ewallace@cme.nist.gov
>Cc:	public-swbp-wg@w3.org; guarino@loa-cnr.it
>Subject:	Re: [OEP] "Classes as values": summary of the discussion so far   and second draft  $swbpd
>
>
>ewallace@cme.nist.gov wrote:
>
>  
>
>>"Uschold, Michael F" <michael.f.uschold@boeing.com> wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On document length...
>>>
>>>To the extent that we have spen the time producing useful content, I think 
>>>it would be a shame to cut it out just to keep documents short. Perhaps 
>>>better is to structure the documents so that there is a good exec summary, 
>>>and for those that wish to dig deeper, extra details may be provided.  Much 
>>>easier in a Web document, but possible for flat documents too, with extra 
>>>work. There could two or even three levels of depth for those who really 
>>>want the gory details. Much more work to produce - a question of balance 
>>>and priorities and what authors feel inspired to do.
>>>      
>>>
>>I agree with this.  Don't delete information, just make it easier to find.
>>A standard structure for these notes would certainly help with this.
>>
>>-Evan
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Length limits often are a good discipline for being concise and getting 
>to the point. (I am not sufficiently informed to have an opinion on the 
>specific note in question)
>
>Jeremy
>
>
>
>
>  
>

-- 
 Deborah L. McGuinness 
 Associate Director Knowledge Systems Laboratory 
 Gates Computer Science Building, 2A Room 241 
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 email: dlm@ksl.stanford.edu
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