DFDLers, Simon sent a marked up document a few weeks back (forwarded in this email) and the comments he made might be discussed this week if there is a quorum. E.g., he suggests reformulating the properties we use for length along the lines originally suggested by Kris Rose, i.e, eliminate the separate lengthUnits property to reduce coupling. Somehow Simon's version seems simpler though. There are other interesting things as well. ...mikeb Mike Beckerle STSM, Architect, Scalable Computing IBM Software Group Information Platform and Solutions Westborough, MA 01581 direct: voice and FAX 508-599-7148 assistant: Pam Riordan priordan@us.ibm.com 508-599-7046 ----- Forwarded by Mike Beckerle/Worcester/IBM on 06/27/2007 09:56 AM ----- "Simon Parker" <simon.parker@polarlake.com> 06/20/2007 09:52 AM To Mike Beckerle/Worcester/IBM@IBMUS, "Martin Westhead" <westhead@avaya.com> cc Subject DFDL specification comments Good afternoon. As long promised, I've read the specification and embedded some comments and suggested corrections with 'Track changes' switched on. I have some observations that don't fit well in those little yellow boxes, so I hope to air them on the wiki. I see significant opportunities for simplifying the language and its specification in the area would call 'composability' (encompassing 'Kernel DFDL' and 'Layers'). In short: find a general way to define complex structures as groups of simple fields. I've already offered to try to find an alternative technique for specifying parser semantics, but haven't made much progress with that yet. Some ideas occurred to me as I read about defaults, null values and so on. It's a smaller topic and maybe an easier starting point, so I created a wiki page. Like everyone, I've not much time to devote to this interesting and worthwhile project. My contributions may seem sketchy, terse or ragged, but they're well meant. More later, Simon Simon Parker Software Consultant PolarLake 80 Harcourt Street Dublin 2, Ireland Phone +353 (1) 449-1075 Fax +353 (1) 449-1011 Web http://www.polarlake.com/ The information transmitted in this email is intended for the addressee only and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, reliance upon or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the addressee is prohibited. If you think, for any reason, that this message may have been addressed to you in error, we would ask you to notify the sender immediately by return email and delete the material. PolarLake Limited | Registered in Dublin, Ireland | Number 357324 | Registered office as above. -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg