[cddlm] XML-CDL spec

[Paul Anderson]

I haven't really been involved in the details of this before,
so please ignore me if I make a fool of myself with stupid
questions .. but I've been reading the XML CDL spec - I was
particularly interested in the template and reference resolution
semantics, and I have some general questions, and some specifics
on the template resolution (more on references later, if you think
this is useful)

Specifics:

1) 7.2.1 - there doesn't seem to be an explicit statement of how the
   "extends" resources on sub-elements are resolved (as in the
   given example). I'm assuming that that "extends" attributes on
   any sub-elements are evaluated before the "extends" attributes
   on the element itself - is this correct?

2) 7.2.2 (1) - I'm assuming that any "extends" attributes on sub-elements
   of n' are evaluated at this time (as above). Is this correct?

I think the above two points are important, otherwise it looks as if
it might be possible to inherit the "extends" attributes, and things
might get complicated (?)

3) 7.2.2.1 (2.2) I think the e should be e' ?

4) In the "hierarchical prototype reference" example on page 16, am I
   right in thinking that the first extends="WebServer" is redundant
   (in this case)? This is just to confirm my understanding of the
   semantics - things might be different, for example if (1) and (2)
   above were different.

More general:

5) Are the template/reference semantics identical to SmartFrog?

I've probably missed the discussions on "why" certain things are
being done the way they are, but it would be really helpful
to have some indication of this where there are important reasons.
I was particularly interested in ....

6) It doesn't look like there is any multiple inheritance - is this
   correct? Was it considered?

7) The fact that inheritance applies to the immediate children only
   seems to cause some difficulties - was there some specific reason
   for doing things this way?

8) Is it possible to separate the template resolution phase from the
   other phases? ie. Could I write a transform that took an arbitrary CDL
   document and generated a semantically equivalent document that
   contains no templates? If this is the case, why would would I not
   want to resolve out all the templates before deploying the document?

I hope this makes some sense ...

Many Thanks

	Paul