Re: please confirm -- strings and states

[James Bryce Clark <jbc@lawyer.com>]

Jim, Bob, I have three questions about the definitions below, probably
because I am rock-stick-stone-dumb about this stuff.

(1)  Does the definitional phrase "event external to this collaboration" 
_permit_,  _require_ or _prohibit_ the use of simple parsable text strings,
along the lines that Bob described a few months ago? 

(2)  If one wanted to run a collab using strings in that manner, where
would one specify to the BSI that strings are going to be used?  Where in
the darn code do these things turn up?   I am aware that middleware can
also handle these transitions -- what I'm trying to figure out is how the
BSI, or Bob's hypothetical little-old-lady-human-parser, gets the
vocabulary of strings, or knows how to use strings at all.  

(3)   What does the definitional qualified "normally" below do?  Duh?  I'm
confused.    Does that mean that transition control doesn't always obey
state management?  

Thanks,  Jamie

At 08:40 AM 3/17/2001, Karsten Riemer wrote:
>Subject to a reply from Jim Clark to my below e-mail,
>here is my suggested definitions for the four strings we have adopted 
>at Business Transaction and Binary Collaboration levels:
>
>beginsWhen: A description of an event external to this
>collaboration/transaction that normally causes this
>collaboration/transaction to commence.
>
>endsWhen: A description of an event external to this
>collaboration/transaction that normally causes this 
>collaboration/transaction to conclude.
>
>requires: A description of a state external to this
>collaboration/transaction that is required before this 
>collaboration/transaction can commence
>
>resultsIn: A description of a state that does not exist before the 
>execution of this collaboration/transaction but will exists as a 
>result of the execution of this collaboration/transaction 
>
>