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Re: analysis of YANG vs. RELAX NG

Leif Johansson <leifj@it.su.se> Wed, 28 November 2007 13:16 UTC

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Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:16:01 +0100
From: Leif Johansson <leifj@it.su.se>
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To: Lisa Dusseault <lisa@osafoundation.org>
Subject: Re: analysis of YANG vs. RELAX NG
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>
> My experience with description languages or other formalizations is
> that these often take the place of proper specification.  Authors
> think that they are done when they've written the code that describes
> the format.  However, the most important aspect to a new standard
> schema is usually what it *means*.
>
I could not agree more. A formal language *can* make the specification
more precise
and less readable (and useful) at the same time.

Having said that I've found that using formal languages for ontologies
can help, especially
if you actually plan on producing "stuff" from the ontology (code for
instance). I don't
think MIBs would be very useful if they were written in English :-)

    Cheers Leif

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