usage guide section 3.7 is broken

Dear all,

I have reviewed the Usage Guide section 3.7 and found that, basically,
the rule listings seem all to be broken to varying degrees (in fact, all
of them say "syntax subject to verification" which should not be the
case so close to finishing). These are just sample errors from those 
I have spotted: 
      * in 3.7-1, swrlb:subtract tests for equality, i.e. that the
        delivery date and order date are exactly two days apart, not at
        least two days
      * the listings use many undefined things - in 3.7-1 the term
        shipment(), in 3.7-2 the symbols waitingTime, deliveryTime etc.
        (not present in 3.7-1, while the two listings should be
        equivalent)
      * 3.7-3 has no XML root element so it's not well-formed, nor does
        it define any namespaces
      * 3.7-4 references wsml#subtract-dateTimes-yielding-day which is
        undefined
      * the rule names, well hidden in 3.7-3 and different from 3.7-4,
        are not at all intuitive

The document should be finished within a few days, and I see three
options how we can end up with a consistent document in such a
timeframe:
     1. we drop all the concrete syntax listings of the rules (3.7-1 -
        3.7-6), keep only the verbal description at the beginning of
        section 3.7 and update the model references in 3.7-8 to point to
        imaginary embodiments of rules, with descriptive names;
     2. we drop the whole section 3.7, seeing how we can't really make
        it concrete, and it puts annotations in places undefined in our
        spec (wsdl:input and wsdl:output) anyway;
     3. before the telcon, the editors (or anyone else interested in
        this) prepare listings (at least one for condition and one for
        effect) that are much more plausible than the current ones.

Also note that the text immediately preceding 3.7 should be moved to the
end of 3.7 if we decide to keep the section; it serves as a segue to
section 4.

Please comment; a course of action will be decided at the telcon
tomorrow. 8-)

Best regards,
Jacek

Received on Monday, 20 August 2007 19:00:54 UTC