[cellml-discussion] Visual model design and editing capabilities for CellML

[Nicolas Le novère]

Abhishek Tiwari wrote:

> P.S. regarding different standards or notation systems, it will be never 
> irrelevant to have multiple standards (domination may be mantra of 
> Microsoft), it gives freedom to choose and that's beauty of open 
> community based projects.

You are absolutely right when it comes to "notation systems". EPE or Vanted 
are a good examples, where you can choose different way of representing 
things. Like for style-sheets in HTML, on can use different rendering to 
enrich the concept presented.

When it comes to "standards" I beg to differ. The purpose of SBGN is to 
have a language that can be unambiguously interpreted, by all, without any 
legend. It is for exchange of maps. Not just for display.

Imagine a world where Boing, Airbus and Lockeed used different graphical 
notations for electrical circuits. Now imagine you are one of the dozens of 
subcontractors working for the three of them. Imagine you are an engineer 
in charge of the safety in a major airport.

SBGN is not like SBML or CellML, where there are API, libraries etc. to 
help with reading, writing and converting. SBGN is standalone, and has to 
be understood by a student, an experimental biologist, a modeler, from an 
article, a powerpoint slide, a pathway software, all that without any 
additional information ...

-- 
Nicolas LE NOVERE, Computational Neurobiology, EMBL-EBI, Wellcome-Trust
Genome Campus, Hinxton CB101SD UK, Mob:+447833147074, Tel:+441223494521
Fax:468, Skype:n.lenovere, AIM:nlenovere, MSN:nlenovere at hotmail.com
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/~lenov/, http://www.ebi.ac.uk/compneur/