Lost mail; Dissent document; CoFIdoc package updated

[pdmosses@brics.dk]

Lost Mail
_________

Unfortunately, I lost some messages permanently from my mailbox during
our recent server system disk failure here.  A couple of these
messages were relevant for the Dissent document described below.

If you sent a message to me or to a CoFI mailing list in the period:

  4am on Tuesday 20 May to 4pm on Thursday 22 May

would you kindly see whether you have a copy of it, and if so, resend
it to me as soon as possible?  Sorry for the bother.


Dissent Document
________________

A further document is being prepared, to help the IFIP WG 1.3 meeting
assess the extent of any dissenting views concerning the Proposed
Design for CASL.  It doesn't contain much of interest at the moment -
except perhaps to those who wish to produce a Note of Dissent...  Here
is the start of it:

                                    CASL
                  The CoFI Algebraic Specification Language
                  Notes of Dissent from the Design Proposal

                  by The CoFI Task Group on Language Design

                                 23 May 1997

     This document is available for browsing on WWW:
     http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Documents/CASL/Dissent/
     and in various formats for printing by FTP:
     ftp://ftp.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Documents/CASL/Dissent/

Abstract

     The CoFI Task Group on Language Design has proposed a design for
     CASL, the CoFI Algebraic Specification Language [LD97]. Most, but
     not all, of the proposed design has the general support of all the
     participants in the task group.

     This document lists particular points in the design of CASL where
     there are dissenting views, and support for alternative design
     choices.

GUIDELINES

For each separate topic of dissent, a CoFI Note of Dissent on Language
Design should be provided, with the following contents:

   * a concise statement of the dissenting view;
   * the names of some participants (at least two) who support this view;
   * the e-mail address of the main contact person;
   * the changes that would be required in the CASL Rationale and Summary if
     the proposed design were to be changed to adopt this view (the full
     text of all the affected sections, with the changes highlighted); and
   * supplementary discussion of the issues involved (formal semantics,
     methodology, tools, etc.).

It is recommended to submit a preliminary or draft version of the note
straight away, to draw attention to the existence of the dissenting view.
The full version of the note must be provided by the deadline of:

     12 noon on Friday 30 May!

The intention is that each available full note will be allocated a slot for
presentation at the IFIP meeting, whereas other issues will be left to fend
for themselves in the general discussion...

The installer of the notes encourages all authors to read the general
guidelines for the formatting of CoFI documents [Mos97], and to use the
provided template.
...


CoFIdoc package and CoFI Note C-1 updated
_________________________________________

The LaTeX files used for formatting CoFI Notes have been updated -
partly to eliminate some minor inconsistencies, partly to improve the
readability of formatted CoFI documents.  The template hasn't changed,
so one shouldn't need to revise existing documents at all before
reformatting them with the new package (which I've been using for a
while at Aarhus now, as you may have noticed).

Kindly throw away the original DRAFT version of the CoFIdoc package,
and copy the files for the new one from the directory at URL
ftp://ftp.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Formatting/CoFIdoc/ 
(Note: there is no longer a single file for unpacking under LaTeX2e.)

The CoFIdoc package is now just an extension of the Hyperlatex
package.  The CoFI Bibliography cofibib.bib is available separately
from CoFIdoc, from URL ftp://ftp.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Bibliography/


Peter

----   --------------------------------------------
\  /  | Peter D Mosses         <pdmosses@brics.dk> |
CoFI  | Common Framework Initiative  - Coordinator |
/  \  | WWW URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI |
----   --------------------------------------------