[Css-csts] Late "pseudo RID" on CSTS Guidelines - Contents of Section 1 - Full message

[John Pietras]

I accidentally hit "Send" before I finished. Here's the complete message.

Dear all,
My apologies for not submitting this as a true RID during the official review period. It has to do with differences between what the Guidelines require for the "Introduction" section (section 1) and what we've been putting in the MD, TD, and (so far) Forward Frame (FF) books.

Recommended Actions:

1.       In section 4.3, add the requirement for a "Purpose of this Recommended Standard" subsection as the first subsection.

2.       Determine if all CSTS books should have a "Cross Support Transfer Services Documentation" subsection, and if so, add it to the Guidelines in section 4.3.

3.       Add requirements for a Nomenclature subsection in 4.3, and clarify the document-organization relationships among "Definitions", "Terms", "Nomenclature", and "Conventions" subsections.

Analysis

1.       The MD, TD, and FF books all have a "Purpose of this Recommended Standard" as the first subsection in the Introduction section. It is not mentioned in the Guidelines.

2.       The MD, TD, and FF books all have a "Cross Support Transfer Services Documentation" subsection that is not mentioned in the Guidelines.  As currently written, this section is two pages of "boilerplate" that is copied without any tailoring. I think that it is useful to continue to include something like this subsection to provide context, but it also occurs to me that as currently written it will cause the reader to ask "Why are you telling me all this? What has this got to do with the CSTS that is the subject of this particular Recommended Standard?" The waiting-for-prototyping-completion TD red book and the in-progress FF book could adopt whatever changes might be made, and the MD blue book could fold in the changes on the next update.

3.       The published MD book has Definitions (1.7), Nomenclature (1.8), and Conventions (1.9) subsections. In contrast, the TD Red Book has a Definitions, Nomenclature, and Conventions subsection (1.6), under which are three subsections: Terms (1.6.1), Nomenclature (1.6.2), and Conventions (1.6.3).

The Guidelines book calls for a Definitions subsection, under which a single Terms subsection is called out. The Guidelines also calls for a separate Conventions subsection, but it is not clear whether it is to be a subsection of the Introduction section (i.e.,  1.x) or a subsection of the Definitions subsection (i.e., 1.<Definitions>.x) following the Terms subsection. Finally, the Guidelines makes no mention of a Conventions subsection.


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