[Oslc-Automation] Some comments on Actions spec (most from CM perspective)

[John Arwe]

I'd say that's spec text and a resource shape, not a *type* definition. 
Which is fine, just different.
By "type* definition" I mean the definition of the vocabulary term 
oslc:StateTransitionAction: I mean what you'd find in its RDFS 
description.  I sure hope I don't find anything about *:targetState  in 
there, except perhaps a seeAlso link.  What I should find is 
how/when/where/not to use it, regardless of any other terms that I mix it 
together with.

Then (if I was in a minimalist state of mind, which is where this 
threadlet started), I'd compare the type definition for :Action and :
StateTransitionAction, and ask if there was any clear meaningful 
distinction.  If not, why two instead of one?  or zero? (although for the 
last question I at least could formulate what seems to me like a 
reasonable answer).

Best Regards, John

Voice US 845-435-9470  BluePages
Tivoli OSLC Lead - Show me the Scenario




From:   Martin P Pain <martinpain at uk.ibm.com>
To:     John Arwe/Poughkeepsie/IBM at IBMUS, 
Cc:     oslc-automation at open-services.net, "Oslc-Automation" 
<oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net>, oslc-cm at open-services.net
Date:   01/30/2014 12:27 PM
Subject:        Re: [Oslc-Automation] Some comments on Actions spec (most 
from    CM      perspective)



> Turning it around: if I have some action Foo that I want to expose, 
> I would hope that the type definition would tell me whether or not I
> should be using oslc:StateTransitionAction amongst the types.

What would you make of this sort of definition? 

An resource (action) of type oslc:StateTransitionAction MUST contain an 
oslc:targetState predicate set to the value that the context's "state" 
property will be changed to by executing this action. Actions of this 
type, if successful, MUST change the object of the a triple, whose subject 
is the context resource and whose predicate is the "state" predicate 
defined by the resource's domain, to the value stated in the action 
resource, as part of a state machine[1][2] (which MAY be finite or 
infinite). Consumers MAY list all oslc:StateTransitionActions from a 
particular context together, for example in a drop-down list, as the list 
of valid states that this context resource may go to in its state model.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine 
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_transition_system 

(Of course, if making this general, we might want to make it explicit in 
the data what the state predicate is in the context resource, which might 
allow multiple state machines per resource as different actions could 
refer to different "state" predicates. This then makes it more complicated 
than the CM example as it currently stands.) 

Martin Pain
Software Developer - Green Hat
Rational Test Virtualization Server, Rational Test Control Panel
Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration - Automation WG joint chair 

E-mail: martinpain at uk.ibm.com
Find me on:  and within IBM on:   




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