- From: Natasha Noy <noy@SMI.Stanford.EDU>
- Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 17:43:00 -0700
- To: Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
- Cc: Alan Rector <rector@cs.man.ac.uk>, swbp <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>
Hi Bernard, > Wow! This is another story that the one I caught, indeed :( So, I'll use my fail-safe "I am not a native speaker" excuse :) >> So, by trying to use the generic roles of "recipient" and "agent," >> we've obscured the issue. I guess it would be better to use simply >> "buyer" and "seller". > > Or replace "Mary" by "Amazon", and ask them to sponsor the document :)) will do -- makes sense. >> I would still go with the purchase example as its slightly more >> straightforward than the gift one (on the gift side, one might wonder >> for example if Mary and Mary's birthday should somehow be connected, >> etc.) > > Yes, and other noisy semantics like what is the kind of relationship > between John and > Mary. > Sticking to the business relationship is safer ... That had to be a Frenchman speaking :) > Agreed. Just put that remark to point out that any apparently simple > situation can be made > arbitrarily complex (and arbitrarily confusing for the user) depending > on how carefully > you look at it. This is a general issue we should maybe address at > some point. > Reminds me of a famous quote by a French humorist of the 70's: > "A technocrat is that kind of guy, when he answers you, you don't > understand your question > any more." Great quote! :) Can you post this periodically to the list so that we remember that when we write our stuff? :) Natasha
Received on Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:44:27 UTC