Struggling to Find Its Track

Formal Languages and Knowledge Representation · 4:58

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Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Back in oh-eight they released the spec
SBVR promised rules we could respect
But adoption stayed low, the uptake was poor
Business rules only, not the compliance we're looking for
Security domains just passed it by
While the standard sat there wondering why

[Chorus]
Three big weaknesses holding it back
Adoption is poor, that's the first crack
Tooling is sparse, the second attack
Vocabulary burden, the final lack
SBVR's struggling to find its track
Three weaknesses keeping it off the map

[Verse 2]
Where are the editors for compliance use?
RuleXpress focuses on business, not security rules
No SBVR to OSCAL pipeline exists
Academic prototypes that barely persist
The tooling landscape is thin and weak
For the compliance features that we seek

[Chorus]
Three big weaknesses holding it back
Adoption is poor, that's the first crack
Tooling is sparse, the second attack
Vocabulary burden, the final lack
SBVR's struggling to find its track
Three weaknesses keeping it off the map

[Bridge]
Before you write a single rule
You need a vocabulary tool
Access control, authentication
Authorization, documentation
Audit logs and incident response
Risk and vulnerability of course
Control owners, hundreds more
Building terms before you explore

[Verse 3]
Temporal logic gets left behind
Sequential steps are hard to find
Contain the threat in four hours flat
Then eradicate, then recover after that
State transitions don't flow well
In SBVR's static rule shell

[Verse 4]
Bold and italic, underline too
Font conventions that looked so new
But plain text breaks the typing scheme
Version control kills the formatting dream
Code repos can't handle the style
Making collaboration hard for a while

[Chorus]
Three big weaknesses holding it back
Adoption is poor, that's the first crack
Tooling is sparse, the second attack
Vocabulary burden, the final lack
SBVR's struggling to find its track
Three weaknesses keeping it off the map

[Outro]
Five hundred rules in one document
Compositionality gets bent
No hierarchy to organize the whole
Individual rules lose overall control
SBVR's weaknesses now you know
Why formal languages struggle to grow

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