In my view, it is important that any solution that Sparx creates to supply more than simple character based narrative support includes the ability to specify styles.
In another posting (Re: Document Generation (http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Automation;action=display;num=1158613683;start=9#9)) some pointers to emerging initiatives were mentioned. Both of these formats provide support for styles.
Why are styles important?
1) They provide a convenient means to change the visual rendering of items.
2) They also provide a form of metadata which can be used by the Automation Interface.
As an example of 2), if I parse a narrative and identify a string of characters as the name of a Classifier, I can apply the character based style "ClassifierName" to that string. Thereafter, if I re-parse the narrative and come across a string styled "ClassifierName" I know I should be able to locate that named string within the repository. If I can't, then I know my narrative is no longer in synchronisation with my structure.
This kind of "closed loop" capability is very helpful (personally, I think vital) in maintaining good documentation in an Agile way.
"A picture is worth a thousand words until there's more than 6 boxes and twelve lines - then all bets are off"[size=0]- Paolo Cantoni[/size]
Thoughts?
Paolo