VoiceXML comments from Elvira development team - part I

    Hi,

    I am one of the developers of a VoiceXML interpreter called Elvira. During
the development and use of Elvira our team faced some problems with VoiceXML
and we also collected some remarks. We would appreciate any comments 
concerning the following issues.


Here is the first part of VoiceXML comments from the Elvira development
team. This part contains our questions, we need to clarify some aspects of
VoiceXML.


1 - "What did you say"?
-----------------------
How to solve the problem when user doesn't understand properly and asks the
computer "what did you say"? The last prompt should be repeated, but without
increasing the prompt counter. It is not possible in VoiceXML although it is
common in human dialogs.


2 - ECMA Script variables must be declared
------------------------------------------
<cite chapter="5.3.12">
   All variables must be declared before being referenced by ECMAScript
   scripts, or by VoiceXML elements.
</cite>

If one uses a variable with an unknown name in ECMA Script, the variable is
simply created. Is there any mechanism how to fulfill the cited requirement?
Can be use of undeclared variables in ECMA Script prevented somehow?


3 - Catch selection algorithm
-----------------------------
<cite chapter="5.2.4">
   1. Form an ordered list of catches consisting of all catches in the current
   scope and all enclosing scopes (form item, form, document, application root
   document, interpreter context), ordered first by scope (starting with the
   current scope), and then within each scope by document order.
[...]
   4. Select the first element in the list with the "correct count".
[...]
   Note that the catch element selection algorithm gives priority to catch
   elements that occur earlier in a document over those that occur later,
</cite>

Is it true that the catch element selection algorithm gives priority to catch
elements that occur earlier in a document?


    We would be very grateful for any relevant comments


            Best regards

                Pavel Cenek
                member of Elvira development team


============================================================================
  Pavel Cenek   Ph.D. student           email: xcenek@fi.muni.cz
  Laboratory of Speech and Dialogue  homepage: http://www.fi.muni.cz/~xcenek
  Faculty of Informatics, MU Brno    lab page: http://www.fi.muni.cz/lsd

  Currently affiliated with Norut IT           http://www.itek.norut.no/itek/
  Tromsoe, Norway as guest researcher
============================================================================
  Elvira - LSD VoiceXML interpreter         http://gin2.itek.norut.no/elvira/
  Engine for building dialogue applications
============================================================================

Received on Friday, 19 April 2002 03:42:30 UTC